The Big Bang!

I took Saaliha and Harry to The Big Bang science fair at the Excel centre today. We had a great time. A big hit with all of us, including little Halima, was Brainiac LIVE! It was a wonderful show, full of science, silliness, big bangs and some really cool experiments. My personal faves were the tricks with liquid nitrogen...one Brainiac put his rubber gloved finger into a container of liquid nitrogen...and when it was suitably cold he placed his frozen digit on a brick whilst his fellow brainiac smashed it (his finger that is) with a hammer!!!
Needless to say his finger was perfectly fine, but the part of the glove that had covered it actually shattered. I was impressed.
We spent a good few hours roaming around the exhibition. Saaliha learned how to identify meteoric 'space' rock and differentiate if from 'earth' rocks. She was able to touch and examine the rocks, test them for magnetism and ultimately decide which rocks were from earth and which were from space. A wonderfully patient student talked Saaliha through the whole thing.
Harry spent rather a lot of time chatting to a representative from Manchester University about nuclear fission and reactors. He had the change to try to manage a reactor and it's systems on a computer simulator. He was very interested in this and another method of atomic power production using fusion as opposed to fission. From today I can safely conclude that H is more interested in physics and chemistry than biology.
We crammed so much in...a chat with an astronomer from the Royal Observatory, a look at 3D printing machines, a rocket engine hoping to break the land speed record, how tornadoes form with the Met Office, how mosquitoes are being controlled with a form of contraception, how far your food travels before it reaches your plate...and so much else.
We had a whale of a time...my only complaint? The food was ridiculously priced.