# Can you make "water marbles" at home? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882 "2009-11-17T04:29:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/1 "2009-11-17T04:29:37Z")
[This guy says yes.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCeAfKCC2ng) [This guy says no.](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090125080901AARD6aG) What say the teeming? ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/2 "2009-11-17T05:08:51Z")
When he takes a handful out, why don’t they all merge together? To me, it looks like he filled the bin with clear marbles (which don’t show up in water), and he merely scoops them out. You want to see something, mix [cornstarch with water](http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000088). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/3 "2009-11-17T05:29:58Z")
The YouTube video is by a kid who can’t spell and doesn’t seem to know the first thing about science. That alone would lead me to doubt it. The WikiAnswers points to a website with [these](http://www.teachersource.com/Chemistry/GroBeastsPolymers/WaterGelCrystals.aspx), which look a lot like balls in the video. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/4 "2009-11-17T06:19:23Z")
There is no reason I can think of why a tub of salt water should suddenly form “marbles.” Sodium acetate is the salt used for the famous supersaturation demo in chemistry class, where you drip the solution onto a seed crystal and it precipitates out, piling up into a tower. What’s he produced in the video is not nearly that saturated, and it’s also still acid. Calcium carbonate is chalk, (or limestone, or marble, or calcite, or Tums). There is no stable solid form of calcium bicarbonate, so I’m sure he didn’t have that. All the fizzing in the video is from the reaction of the residual acid and the carbonate. And then there’s the salt: iodized or not, it’s just salt. When all is done, you’ve got water with lots of ions – calcium, sodium, chloride, acetate, and bicarbonate (HCO[sub]3[/sub]). There’s nothing there that’s going to make rubbery little balls. There’s also the question of where the hell all that water came from; when he started, there was just an ounce or two of vinegar, and then there’s fizzing, and he adds salt and it knocks the foam back down to about three ounces, but when he ours it off, there’s nearly a pint. Whappen? It keeps growing, and growing, and GROWING! ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/5 "2009-11-17T06:58:24Z")
It seems that this should be simple enough to test. Follow the kid’s directions and see what happens. I might try myself. Of course, there’s always the chance that the kid actually did make the stuff, but didn’t document his procedure correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/6 "2009-11-17T12:28:36Z")
He says so himself at the end of the video. I’m guessing sodium polyacrylate. THat’s the stuff in superabsorbant diapers. You see it sold in garden shops and the like as a gel growth medium. It’s nearly all water, and has almost the same optical density, so it is very hard, but not impossible to see when in water. Look at the scene, where he writes “almost ready” or just before he scoops some out. You can barely see there is something in the water. It doesn’t happen “when contact with air” the polyacrylate nodules are already there ---
**Author:** ![moldybread](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@moldybread](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldybread)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/7 "2009-11-17T18:46:31Z")
Here’s what the kid seems to be using [http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/vanishing-jelly-marbles-kit](http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/vanishing-jelly-marbles-kit) Edit: Sorry #3 didnt see your link. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/8 "2009-11-17T21:13:34Z")
> [@moldybread](#): > > Here’s what the kid seems to be using > > [http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/vanishing-jelly-marbles-kit](http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/vanishing-jelly-marbles-kit) > > Edit: Sorry #3 didnt see your link. **What’s included?** Plastic pie pan 10 grams of Jelly Marbles \*\*7 Dram vile \*\* 3 Glass marbles LOL! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/9 "2009-11-17T22:35:30Z")
It could also be glass marbles, in some fluid other than water with the same index of refraction as glass. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/10 "2009-11-18T00:08:11Z")
What the heck is “polar hability”? ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-water-marbles-at-home/517882/11 "2009-11-18T13:58:12Z")
Sucks that this was debunked… if it were real, that would be really cool!