Walkie Scorchie | Melting cars with a parabolic mirror | Live Experiments (Ep 57) | Head Squeeze

Do not try this at home under any circumstances.
Head Squeeze HQ has been following the story about the skyscraper in London dubbed the ""Walkie Talkie"" - and more recently the "Walkie Scorchie" - because it's been creating some pretty intense heat!

The building is curved in such a way that it has been reflecting sun light and causing some quite serious damage -- allegedly even melting a Jaguar car parked up in the street below! So we thought we'd look at the science and do an experiment with our own toy car!

The curve of the skyscraper is acting just like a parabolic mirror -- mirrors like this are great at reflecting energy to one single point. The Sun kicks out an enormous amount of energy, every second the sun produces the same energy as about a trillion 1 megaton bombs! That's about 400 trillion trillion Watts.

Although the sunlight has been causing some glare issues in London, it's the invisible infra-red radiation also reflected off the building that's causing most damage. In this experiment we show just how hot it can get when the sun is reflected off a parabolic mirror by setting light to black paper, flash cotton and finally, our toy car.

Even an 18" parabolic mirror can cause some serious damage!

Check out Huw's video where he cooked s'mores with the same mirror:    • How to make a Solar Oven | Live Exper...  

And to find out why hot things glow red, Greg Foot has the answer:    • Why do Hot Things Glow? | Greg Foot A...  

For more information about the Fry Scraper check out this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...

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Our resident science demo thrill-seekers will give the YouTube audience their big science treat each week with an experiment where you can find out how to make food dance, power a light bulb with household objects and create mega smoke rings!