Hip Hop Meets Chemistry

An interesting article today in the UW paper, “UW-Madison student mixes passions for science, dancing.” The video that accompanies the article is actually pretty awesome, provided you want to see a guy dance hip hop style covered in glowing chemicals, and really who wouldn’t.

The article explains how UW-Madison student Jeffrey Vinokur combined his love for chemistry and dancing to create the act the Dancing Mad Scientist, which finished in the top 100 out of more than 70,000 auditions for the NBC show America’s Got Talent. Vinokur’s hometown is Montvale, New Jersey, so clearly as a Jersey girl myself, it caught my attention.

I think its great that Vinokur is taking his act to schools and helping people get excited about chemistry, but I do have to point out that in the video where he talks about chemiluminescence he never actually explains what it is. He explains how a glow stick works. This is not at all the same thing as explaining WHY certain chemicals glow when you combine them.

If you do want to learn more about chemiluminescence check out this link:
http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Ce-Co/Chemiluminescence.html