Short Video

How Does it Work?

For this experiment, you will need 5 glasses of water, blue, yellow, and red food coloring dye. Line the 5 empty glasses of water in a row, and fill the first, third, and fifth glass of water with the blue, yellow and red dye respectively. Use 2 drops of blue dye, 1 drop of yellow dye, and 4 drops of red dye. Next, roll up 4 paper towels as seen in the video, and fold them in the middle. Place each paper towel between the glasses so that each end is touching water or empty glass on both ends. Now, watch the magic!

The water travels up through the paper towels through adhesive and cohesive forces, which work against gravity. The water molecules are polar and attracted to each other. This attraction to each other lets them move up through the paper towel. Once it gets to the top, gravity then also helps the water travel downwards into the empty glasses. This movement will continue until the levels in each of the glasses are the same, or otherwise known as equilibrium. The two empty glasses will now be mixed with water with blue and yellow, and yellow and red dye, respectively. The combination of these two dyes will form new colors: green and orange. The purpose for the quantity of droplets is to make sure that one color doesn't overpower the other.