Foundation Blog

Well I’ve finished, and here are the final images of Tom (on the right) and Jerry (on the left) moments before they went down the drain.  My post’s a bit late though, for which my humble apologies, partly because I kept on finding other things to do other than downloading the photos from my camera, and partly because the SI unit thing was playing on my mind.

Anyway, here is the unfortunate tale of Tom and Jerry’s last days.  All seemed to have stagnated by day ten, no new spore patches appeared for a run of several days, and I’d faithfully promised her indoors that the soup would be out of the house by the afternoon of 18 April.  Imagine my horror then when I visited Tom and Jerry one last time to find new growth emerging in a whole series of different places (see pics).

I resolved that the soup had to go, come what may, so it is unclear whether all the spores in the air had really translated into mould on the soup by the time I finished the experiment (may be you should have waited longer, Kenrick?).  So my final calculations, based on the new little pimples appearing on both Tom and Jerry - all little white floaters which left circular ripple effects when located in mid-surface - were as follows:

Tom - 6 growths - spore density of 3.97 x 10 to the minus 9

Jerry - 5 growths - spore density of 3.31 x 10 to the minus 9

As the photos demonstrate, the sugary crystal stuff on Tom’s main growth was still going strong at the end …

Day 4:(the first day anything happened) Surface in one corner becoming uneaven.

Day 5: Ice-like growth in two (opposite) corners. About 1mm high and about 10cm long each. Surface in both corners uneven.

Day 6: Still only in the same two corners, but now about 2mm high, with white peaks. Both about 15cm long. Small white patch growing close to near-right corner.

Day 7: Still only same 2 corners. Icey stuff around the edge now about 3mm at the highest. White frosting in near-right corner. small whit patch in opposite corner.

Day 8: Still only the same two corners, but now near-right corner has 3 green patches about the size of 5p’s

Day 9: Most of the near-right corner has turned green. White in this and the opposite corner nearly touching. Far right corner has a white patch. Can see a thin layer of clear fluid under the white in near-right.

Day 10: Layer of fluid in near-right is now about 5mm and looks yellow. The soup behind looks grey. Green in near-right is now fluffy and domed, like a cussion. Some green in opposite corner, and the white from all three is now touching. Still nothing in near-left corner.

So this was the final result of my soup experiment on the 13th of April 2007. As you can see I finished up with three spores. The little one in the corner, I named after my cat: Archie and the other two I named Tim and Willy. I have added a picture of Archie, giving my dog (Scooby) attitude and showing him his best side.

See you all tomorrow.

Well its day 4 of the mouldy soup experiment and for the first three days there was nothing to report but rather excitingly today I have discovered a spec of mould. It appeared in the extreme top right hand corner, its white and microscopic but on close inspection with a magnifying glass I was horrified to discover that it was distantantly related to Tim’s mould on his soup (SCARY!) Anyway; I will keep you all posted on these rather exciting developments.

All The Best.

Andrew McKiernan.

3 more photos chaps, taken 30/4/07

soup no 1 has 2 spore present in sector d 

soup no 2 has 11 spore in total present, 5 in sector a 3 in sector b 2 in sector c and 1 in sector d

soup no 3 no spores present present

soup no 3  

O.K so as you can see I’ve started my experiment, which at this point is going a lot better than my essay. Its taken me nearly all day to post this message so I hope that its all worthwhile! I’ll keep you all posted on how its going, I’m so excited, I feel like celebrating by sticking it in the microwave… THE SOUP !…but I won’t. The tub is 17cm x 11cm x 5cm =935cm cubed and my soup fills exactly half of the tub which means you have 467.5cm cubed of either air or soup ( I think.) I’m not sure where to store it yet.

Like Vaughan, I’ve gone for the two soups approach, using identical glass containers, each filled with 57 varieties from the same 800g can of soup. 

I did seek out cheaper brands, but the Co-op didn’t have any in this size and I wanted to be sure I was using the same medium in each experiment.  Both containers were filled and sealed on our kitchen table, and I include here some photographic evidence for the fact that the table is almost as messy as my office. 

 I’m going to call one experiment Tom and the other Jerry.  Tom has been placed on top of the video player in the front room - in full view of all so I’ll certainly get into trouble with the missus for this one.  Jerry is on a small medicine cabinet in the bathroom.  Neither will get direct sunlight.  The volume of air space in each is approximately 21cm x 16cm x 4.5cm which comes to 1512 cubic centimetres for each, I believe.  I’m not feeling brave enough to convert into SI units just yet, but there’s time for that.  Here’s hoping I have more mould to report than Kenrick in a few days time.  Happy Easter, one and all!

photos of my three soup experiments having just been born 26/03/07.

I have just completed my experiment, and i must say i am left wanting. My soup only grew two circular grey mould, therefore i felt cheated. I wished it was over a longer period because i know there would be some fireworks in my plastic container.    

I started my experiment on 31/03/07, but I have only just got round to posting this.

 Shona