This guy is a brilliant educator!

I've always loved the Ri lectures. As a kid I used to look forward to them at Christmas. So glad they are still going.

This reminds me of when I was in elementary school, and we would get guest visitors from NASA, and the Brookhaven Lab, an many others. They would do experiments like these, and also liquid chemistry experiments as well. Those were wonderful moments that I can't forget if I wanted to!!!! I hope the grade schoolers are still getting visits from the science labs, and Nasa!

Just imagine if all teachers were this informative, amazing and engaging! I would have looked forward to going to school like Christmas Morning!!

Unfortunately, science teachers can’t do that. This lecture is expensive and to do this multiple times a day would be too costly. These are also just the highlights of an entire course. 95% of the course would be calculating the chemistry involved which is not as fun as the demonstration. Putting something together like this takes a lot of time that teachers don’t have. Most of our time is going to be spent grading your papers. This great for a 1 off presentation but impossible to do daily in a real educational setting. Just facing reality, science is mostly boring with the occasional awesomeness. You are just seeing the awesome parts here, just all at once.

This is great for everyone who enjoys Fireworks, showing the hard work these professionals do for our entertainment on firework displays.

I had to do a presentation in fireworks, what they were made of and how and why they work the way they do and this helped me so much! Thank you very much! 😁

This man just straight up taught a bunch of kids exactly how to make gun powder and I'm all for it

Lol

@Luke Baehr Heh, the Marxist infiltrates in Soviet Union taught that chemistry is rad, but it's even more rad to work a lathe or shovel dirt ^^; Dunno where you import your infiltrates from, sounds like you got the leftovers o_O

Losing centuries of knowledge would be tragic! Passing it on should be normal.

I knew how to make nitrocellulose since I was 10 or 11, and gunpowder quite a bit earlier... But then - I was going to a Russian school, dunno how's science taught in Britain or US

Always enjoy your presentations my grandson loves them as well, thank you so much for sharing. Well done sir!

I love it. This needs more views. Saw it before going to a fire work show, and made the fireworks more interesting...at least to me. Thank you for the awesome lesson!

This is absolutely fantastic! I wish you were my chemistry professor

I love Chris Bishop's lectures, thanks!

Excellent lecture, I really enjoyed the whole thing.

In a lot of ways I wish I was a child growing up in todays modern age. As a child I hated school and bunked off as often as I could get away with which left me in the lowest of the low forms. I did however make good my education after joining the Royal Navy and then the Ambulance service where I studied to become a Paramedic. Today learning is made such fun and so easy with programs like this and the Periodic Lectures to name but a few. Even at the age of 61 I still find learning fun. Thank you.

Hfd

I wish it was fun... Fun is like literally the only way for humans to learn something.

Budo Aayo...Vasan Jharna😂😂

Ibiza

HALLELUYAH !

Another great lecture. Super presentation!!!!

Superbly explained and demonstrated. Well done!

Brilliant production. Would love to be studying the sciences again.

Great lecture and demonstration. And a great way to get children interested in chemistry.

That was very, uh... enlightening! Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!

What a lovely presentation.

Wonderful lecture! Thanks for sharing!

A wonderful presentation. My Science masters at my school were much like Prof Bishop. Chemistry and general science was vitally interesting and thankfully, I became so wrapped in it . Ultimately I created my own chemical business and the rest is history. Science is NOT a subject to be afraid of,the world revolves around the sciences, knowledge of the sciences is a great and ever changing method of creativity. It would be nice to see more girls becoming interested in the sciences. Think about it,Cosmetics, Hair shampoos, Cooking, all products of the sciences.Terry Offord

Chris I just want to say I know you probably don't get the thank you that you deserve but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping set up that nice demonstration.

Amazing lecture. Thank you.

chris bishop is the perfect person to make education scientific videos, just brilliant

Absolutely brilliant! He's such a nice guy aswell!

Chris because of you I learned a lot today and also thank you to the presenter as well

Absolutely fabulous presentation. 🙏🌹🇮🇳

Excellent work with the children, thank you for that!

Entertaining and educational. Really enjoyed this.

That's just great !! although I've learned must of it at school, that was a great lecture !

For some reason I always thought shells were launced in a similar fashion to setting off demolition explosives with a blasting cap - never thought of an electric match but it makes sense now. A lot safer to handle than detonators.

+David Butler you cant beat hand firing shells though!

The firing systems we use in firework displays are pretty much the same as you would use on demolition also

Good one, very well explained

I absolutely love chemistry and physics

What a lovely demonstration!

Thank you for making me NOT fail my chemistry test!

awesome presentation loved it lol im a huge firework chemistry fan

Ah a nice hour long one! The videos you guys upload are always interesting. I've set the quality to HD, and while it buffers I will have a cigarette and cup of tea. I greatly anticipate watching this video!

welcome in 2020. we got 4K instantly...

Very well done!

I love your videos.keep making more

Thank You, Royal Institution, for this, interesting lecture.

Great lecture and demonstration.

If every chemistry lecture had been this interesting, I would have learned it a lot faster and remembered it longer!

Citric

Goog fifth ng

He he yeah, fire.

... As Professor Bishop was setting up his experiment to see how long that line of his handmade gunpowder would take to burn through, the Eternal Boy Scout that still lives somewhere within me mentally set up to time the line's burn, using the classic silent "One-one thousand, Two-one thousand, Three-one thousand" & etc. technique ... and I got 8 seconds. When the good Professor guesstimated the burn time as *12* seconds, my jaw dropped. So, I grabbed a handy digital timer which I keep on my worktable, scrolled the video back and timed the burn time again ... *7 seconds,* and I was a smidge late starting the timer. ... Fair Point to me, I think. Seeing Lycopodium powder again brought back fond memories of elementary school science class. I was fascinated to learn that the powder was actually dried spores of the puffball fungus, which I'd seen for myself while stomping around the woods on camping trips. Being A Boy, when I espied some of the little round puffballs, I stomped them, and was surprised to see what looked for all the world to be a blast of fine dust come out. My science teacher further amazed me with the information that this very powder was what was first used as "flash powder" during Photography's early days. They sprinkled it into that T-shaped gizmo they would hold up during the photograph's exposure, and touch it off. But Lycopodium powder had one more fascinating trick ... my science teacher half-filled a beaker with water, sprinkled some of the powder into it, and it all floated on the surface. None of it seemed to be mixing with the water. My teacher chose me to come up, and just dip my forefinger into the water, right through the powder, up to the second knuckle, and then pull my finger back up and out ... because she knew my reaction would be priceless ... and it was. My jaw literally dropped, because my finger remained *absolutely dry.* ... Now armed with a little knowledge and therefore dangerous, the very next camping trip I went out on, I made sure that I was carrying my little waterproof cannister of phosphorous-tipped (strikes on anything) wood matches, and you just *know* what's coming, don't you? I found the most amazing close grouping of three nice, round puffballs, and with my fellow Scouts wondering what the Hell I was up to, I got a match at the ready, quickly mentally rehearsed what you already know I pulled off, stomped as hard as I could on the three puffballs, the spores exploded up and out into the air, and I struck the match. The brilliant flash of flame and light that resulted got even more of the reaction I'd hoped for ... my fellow Scouts were looking at me like I had suddenly sprouted *horns* from my forehead, or something. They couldn't get over it, and that night, we were all sneaking around in the woods, stomping and detonating all the puffballs we could find. What that must have looked like from a distance must have been magical. I seriously doubt that there was a single puffball left intact within a half-mile radius that night ... and in the dark, that flash was simply *spectacular.* I'll be 67 next month, and my lifelong love of Science has served me wonderfully well throughout my last 42 years of making multimedia art. Creative effects are merely the Onstage of what's *really* going on *Backstage.*

That's interesting about the puffball spores, I remember those as a kid. Those are really tasty when they're nice and fresh and white and round. It's a treat to find one like that. I think the spores are poisonous or so I've heard. I'll have to look into more information and experiment with them If I find one. Edit: It was definitely 7 seconds.

@jeff hagerman he was saying you can just look at the timestamp on the video to "time" the reaction. He said nothing about fiddling with a digital timer. Just calm down a bit and see that not everyone making a suggestion on the internet is doing so out of malice or being on a high pedestal, sometimes they just have good ideas. In this case he did have a good idea, just looking at the time that's passed on video stamp to determine how long it took to burn. The person who was "fiddling with a digital timer" was ironically the original OP, who pulled out a timer instead of just using the timestamps on the video (the very action you were deriding!). Now note that the second posters suggestion had absolutely no insults and no "tone". You assumed a tone by assuming anyone who has a suggestion is 1. dumber than you and 2. has ill intentions toward you. In fact he had a good suggestion that you misunderstood, thinking he was talking about pulling out a timer on his phone. We all need to calm down sometimes when reading comments on the internet, understand that you may be adding that evil tone to a post and you may have got your feelings so worked up you completely misunderstood the point he was making. Try to listen to people and actually learn something instead of immediately defaulting to defensiveness.

@Jeff Hagerman What's the connection to my post?

@DMSG1981 Or maybe you could come down from your self-built pedestal for a few minutes and realize that MAYBE you just learned something from a person with more of life's experiences than you will ever know. While you are fumbling with your phone looking for a digital timer you will have missed the event that you think you needed it for. That mental counting method will pop into your head if you let it in. The human mind is much quicker than the finger. (I heard that).

What a GREAT story! My 67th was a couple months ago. I too have the memories of those camping trips but, never knew about the volatility of puffball spores or the dry finger-related characteristic. My wife and I are sitting here laughing (at about 4:20) at the mental picture of the sporatic (no pun intended) small explosions occurring over a couple, three acres of dark woods in the middle of nowhere! Thanks for sharing!!

This lecture is very educational and entertaining! Chris Bishop wonderfully explains and demonstrates, through experiments, how the chemistry of fireworks over time has changed and developed to create stronger combustion, different colors and different creation of explosions.

After watching his balloon explosions envolve different H and O's. I rememebered a time some 60 years ago, our science class teacher asking what would happen to such a balloon filled with H2 O. And for a volunteer to show it. Knowing H2O was the composition of water, and believing I'd get wet in the process, thus allowing me to go home. I raised my hand. Needless to say, pun intended; It blew me away. And frighten me half out of my wits.

So edicational! Keep up uploading!

Fantastic lecture! Would it be possible to talk for an hour or so on LASERS? I'll never forget the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture I watched as a child. (1985?)

I need this man to teach me EVERYTHING please.

Wow, looking forward to making my own fireworks.

enjoyable presentation... Had i had teachers a little more exciting in school, i might have paid better attention!

this was really interesting and i learned a lot

Fascinate children through fun experiments and therefore encourage them to follow science lessons is a beautiful thing.

You would never guess his day job is researching machine learning for Microsoft, this is essentially his 'hobby' - if only all brilliant men were able to relate to the general public as easily as he does, wonderful stuff.

Just a point to mention on whistling fireworks. Modern compounds use a mixture of potassium benzoate and potassium perchlorate to produce the whistle without any harmonic tubing involved, a science within itself.

I always thought that a "glow stick" got brighter when you put it up against a incandescent bulb. I now realize that this was because of the heat produced and really had nothing to do with absorbing light.

What an excellent presentation. This is how children should be enthusiastically educated.

great teaching... would have some of this Lecture in germany

This guy is very easy and enjoyable to watch/follow as he talks. My kids have alot of respect for him. Very informative, and he keeps his audience 100% engaged. Brilliant presentation Thank you, Prof. Bishop.

Its sad that so few people have seen this as it is great fun and tells you a lot about fireworks

Loved it!

Fantastic...I learned so much.

An excellent presentation. I would suggest that Alder makes better gunpowder charcoal than Willow. I have visited the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey and coppiced Alder was what they used. Waltham Abbey were the masters of English gunpowder makers.

thanks you for this video. it helped me a lot with the my understanding of hydrogen.

This 1 hour lecture broadened my knowledge more than all the years of high school put together... 😍😍

That's an extremely poor indicator of the quality of the schools you attended. Either that, or a poor indicator of your willingness to learn at the time. Or, both, really. And, one would surmise, you mean chemistry knowledge, not... other sciences, English, maths, spelling, geography, or any other of the myriad of subjects not covered here. 🤨

Very slick throughout, very good speaker, very clear explanations.

I'm a pyrotech and enjoyed watching this.

I have found some of the chemistry in Alibaba's and other websites. I am looking forward to impress my friends with huge homemade fireworks

Highschool chemistry: taught us the formula for gunpowder using an antiquated term for potassium nitrate to make sure we couldn’t go out and make the stuff for ourselves. This dude: straight up teaches children the exact mixture and ratios 😆

Very good lecture.

Really enjoyed the presentation. Thanks

Very good show! 🙂

' Excellent lecture and demo's !!! '.

nice!! a good introduction into fireworks. From a 30 year pyro and manufacturer

Thank you for sharing, kind Sir's!

Well prepared lecture

Most enjoyable, thank you.

Advice for young people: Keep away from fireworks! I know that I am a wet blanket, but you have absolutely no idea of how powerful they can be. In a recent accident, a professional set off mortars that were not properly buried. The bursting charge DETONATED just as it cleared the ground but was still inside the top of the metal mortar. A piece of steel broke off of the mortar and killed a man standing more than 200 meters away. Explosives are unforgiving. They can be set off by many things, sparks, heat, or even impacts. They give no warning. I know that fooling around with fireworks LOOKS like fun, but the best time to quit is before you start, while you still have all of your fingers and both eyes. Trust me on this.

the chemisty and science into fire is amazing thank you how could i see one of these lectures in person? 

+The Royal Institution Please can you guys make a Channel just related to chemistry if you guys could translate this lectures to Spanish it would be asome you guys are doing a great job getting people interested in chemistry and science and I'm just thankful that I found this channel.

alright so question im a seasonal wildland firefighter and ive never travled out of the states but know the process i was just seeing if u had a list of when these lectures are or is it within the link? 

@Gordon Bailey I'm glad you like it! We have a whole programme of public events here at the Royal Institution in London and you can book directly online: http://rigb.org/whats-onA new programme will be launched very soon!

Ha yes, much better than Matthew Tosh's presentation about pyrotechnics. This is brilliant!

Very interesting and enjoyable.I make black powder for fun.The best method is to mill the chemicals to combine them.I have a mill with glass marbles to pound the powder.Never use ball bearings, if you like your house.

so that's the best thing of being scientist --- being paid to have fun. 👍👍👍👍 Big Thumbs Up 👍 to this video. Education. Interesting. Informative. 👍👍👍

I am finally glad that “Chemistry came to existence. Why I say that is bcz - Physicists have been The Lion King”

I love the lecture

Unravelling the mechanisms of fireworks! Why has this video taken so long to reach my screen? BTW, I want a shell!

The 23 dislikes are people that hate life. I MEAN HONESTLY WHO CAN HATE FIREWORKS

Dogs...

The ministry of health and safety & Soccer moms Ltd.

Democrats

Well, I do still dislike the noises and loud sonic booms of fireworks...but I am in awe of the colours and underlying chemical reactions--so no 'dislike' for this video. :)

My neighbors at 11 at night laugh out loud

A really good documentaion thanks for uploading

@MrWeAllAreOne aww come on be a little nice to him he was making a compliment not an super correct english statement

Actually it is a lecture! Not even sure what word you were trying for, documentation, documentary,neither would be correct. Maybe you should watch something related to the understanding of the English language.

Now this is how you present science to 10 year olds. You have a clear goal: To make a firework. Then you talk about the science in simple understandable terms for a 10 year old. Unlike Andrew Sczydlo who is disorganized and way too technical for kids.

Really! Didn't knew that i thought it was real, it has the lift bag, quickmatch and e-match on it and i freaked out when i saw it nea flames lol... Btw it is a very nice lecture and everything was correct on it.

Just imagine giving a chemistry demonstration and feeling confident enough that you’re willing to pick up your cup of water and take a drink from it, very sure you’ve not mixed it up with one of your experiments.

I can't wait to copy the demonstrations at home!

@joelfromportland tell that to ur NSA handler bub

Just kidding of course 😉

Very nicely done.

Look up "Air Launch" fireworks where they do away with the lifting charges and fuses and use compressed air and an expendable timing chip so that the shell burst can be tightly controlled and synchronized with music and other cues.

RI Lectures are wonderful substitutions to abysmal US science class. Theology is no substitution for science.

Amazing!

Haha ye that would be crazy if it was real haha :) Its like the dummy models you some times see in firework stores. Ye it sure was loved to watch this!

In my original post I said "I sure hope those shells were just models". If those shells are live shells, and this guy was foolish enough to light other devices anywhere near them, then he put everyone in that lecture hall in incredible danger. If any of those shells went off that room would have been filled with hot burning stars. The bang, if they were salutes, would have injured numerous people from the concussion alone. Watch the video towards the middle. Those shells look live to me.

35 minutes into the demo, we get an introduction on how flash powder (also known as salute powder). The main chemical used in flash powder is magnalium.....

Someday, if i have kids, i wish them to take them to such events early in their being so as to nurture a insatiable thirst about nature . They will belong among the best humans who actually contribute something meaningful to the world rather than rap, graffitti, tattos and such.

yes, finally someone british talking about fireworks

Did you miss the profile of the "shell" the red and blue balls would be what ever effect the pyrotechnician wants, they're not just in a ring, but in a layer surrounding the "bursting charge", so that they are spread about evenly(ish) when the charge goes off.