Better Chemistry Through Beauty

I hated every single endless minute of my high school chemistry class. I’d stare at the chemical equations on the chalkboard, waiting to be balanced, all their little subscripts and arrows and parentheses, and my nose would start to bleed (really — it’s the only time I’ve ever experienced a nosebleed borne of sheer boredom and frustration). It all seemed so dry and difficult. It never occurred to me in those days that chemistry could be playful — not to mention intensely, ethereally beautiful.

But it occurred to the mess-making minds behind Chemical Bouillon, AKA your new favorite YouTube channel. Chemical Bouillon is the work of three French artists —Antoine Delach, Valere Amirault, and Teurk— who take advantage of chemical phenomena like ferrofluids to make videos that look like moving paintings, slinky sculptures, and slow-motion explosions. Or, as they put it on their YouTube profile, their mission is to “find and isolate natural patterns by mixing every strange product we can lay our hands on.”

Check out some GIFs of their work below, then head to Chemical Bouillon to see the full videos.

(PS to high school teachers everywhere—for next semester, can I suggest “Making Super Cool YouTube Videos with Strange Products” as an alternative to “Chemistry 101”?)