This magic trick looks really good, but the consequences are incalculable.
Do you like magic? Recently, a member on the Reddit forum just posted a magic trick that looks really “virtual tossing the pan”. You can see it right in the picture below.
The guy in the picture holds an empty bucket, makes a “pour” , and the hundreds of candles immediately go out.
This magic trick was originally posted by YouTuber Nick Uhas in 2017, and received great attention. But recently, the Reddit forum has made it popular again.
Post on Reddit forum.
Of course, everything has a cause. According to the explanation, the barrel the guy was holding was not empty, but contained a gas with an extremely dense density. It is named sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) .
Do you know helium gas? It’s a very light gas commonly used in balloons, but it also has the other effect of making your voice pop into a very high, “wow” like chipmunk mice. SF6 does the same thing, but with the opposite effect – making the sound waves in the larynx slower, and making your voice lower.
Another magic trick: this gas can “pick up” and pour like water
SF6 is about 5 times heavier than air, you can easily fill it in that plastic container. And when “poured” this gas out, it will not go up, but spill down like water. And because of the inability to sustain the fire, the hundreds of other candles went out.
Looks good, but no one expected that this magic trick could cause a very serious consequence.
And that is terrible consequences for the environment . In fact, SF6 is a greenhouse gas agent at a terrible level , 22,800 times more harmful than CO 2 . To make it easier to imagine, 1kg of SF6 will have the same impact as 22.8 tons of CO 2 .
And it’s not over yet. Once in the atmosphere, SF6 won’t disappear until at least the next 3,200 years. Unfortunately, once you pour it out, you can’t get it back.
SF6 is still commonly used in the electrical industry to prevent fire hazards as we have not found an alternative. But despite being treated and controlled, there is still a large amount of this harmful gas released into the environment.
SF6 is a greenhouse gas agent of extreme magnitude.
“In 2002, about 600 tons of SF6 were released into the atmosphere. It is equivalent to the amount of gas produced by more than 3 million personal cars in a year, or nearly 73,000 coal-fired trains” – quoted in the SF6 report. Gasworld.
The exact capacity of the plastic container in the photo has not been released, but it is estimated to be around 30 liters. If the whole tank was filled with sulfur hexafluoride, that would translate to about 195g of SF6, equivalent to 4.4 tons of CO 2 .
Do you know how big that number is? According to official statistics of the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency), the amount of CO2 emitted by a car in a year is about 4.6 tons.
Meaning, just a fun magic trick after 1 minute, you’ve done the same damage to the environment as getting another car. Do you still want to do it now?