I brought along some sodium metal. >> And if I turn this thing sideways, you might be able to see that we have little pieces of sodium stored under mineral oil inside the jar. >> I took the liberty of removing one little piece of sodium earlier and write it out a little bit on this piece of paper towel and zoom in on that, that piece of sodium with about two or three times as big as what we need for the demonstrations. >> So what I want to do is just take my spatially here and cut it in half. >> And when Pete and see right away for doing this is that it's relatively easy to cut. >> Sodium, it's a very soft metal, unlike other metals like iron that are much harder. So we can get a fresh sodium surface to work with there. >> I also brought along a beaker of water. >> Let me position it properly. >> Now I could just ducked the sodium in the water and see what happens. >> But we're going to play it a little bit safer than that. I've attached a little piece of filter paper that's folded up and I'm just going to dip that piece of filter paper into the water. >> So you can see that the filter papers becoming wet with the water in the beaker. I'm just a drop in one little piece of sodium. >> Let's watch what you can see that the reaction is sufficiently out vigorous. >> Teach me to wear my goggles. >> The reaction is sufficiently vigorous than it bursts into flames, actually igniting the sodium, igniting the hydrogen that was formed in that reaction or that hydrogen balloon demonstration we did earlier. >> Same kind of thing going on, except chemically you'll also notice the water is turning pink. And reason the water is turning vane because we added phenyl failing into the water. >> And of course, the other product of this reaction is sodium hydroxide. >> You're probably aware the hydroxide is a base. Phenolphthalein turns pink. So that's what happens when sodium just gets a little moist, Which is why I didn't want to throw that piece of sodium just straight into the beaker.