Why don't oil and water mix? - John Pollard 

This guy went so deep into the analogy that I have no idea how it actually works.

I've learned some pretty advanced stuff with simplified analogy, but this is way too metaphorical for me to extract any hard science information.

The writer was all "They're square dancing", the animator however decided, "Screw that, it's a disco."

What? How could you dumb down something so much to the point where you don't understand anything

teacher:do you know why water and oil are not mixing? student:because oils are terrible dancer

You made simple thing complex.

i dont mind analogies but this... this is too MUCH!

very stupid analogy. it said nothing about ion attractions or polarity.

Well, the analogy wasn't wrong at all but I just understood something because I was previously reading about it, but those who don't really know did get confused because well... Practically nothing was explained here.

I'll never see oil the same way again.

"Water and oil don't mix because they just don't make good dance partners." WHAT THE FUCK.

there ist definitely too much party in my glass of water

Wait for it to rain

I love how creative this is. It shows us a different way of thinking. It's like taking book knowledge and grasping it with your mind. It helps you to not memorize, but really learn how things work :)

I think this would have been much more simpler if you went into actual detail as opposed to telling a children's story

I don't mind when analogies are used to help describe scientific concepts, but this is just too much.

This is more of a metaphor than an analogy. The difference is that, in an analogy, you explain something, then compare it to something else to make it easier to understand. In a metaphor, you just say something figurative and the person listening has to already know what you're talking about in order to understand. So, in my point of view, it isn't very efficient to make an "educational metaphor", which is what this video essentially is.

Now, can you please explain this in chemistry? 😩😭

Sorry, but in this video the analogies got way out of hands and basically no real science is left in this video

this video was garbage, the analogy went so deep i didnt learn anything except that oil wears a dress and water doesnt want to dance because of it

*reads title* Oh I already know this but I'm watching it anyway *watches video* Ok I definitely didn't know /this/

Lesson learned: Water likes thin dancers, not *fat oily dancers*.

Oil floats on water 1.Wait for rain 2.Cover yourself on oil 3.fly

Those damn analogies. "I'm not gonna tell you: The universe is like a ball on a spring. It's not" - Richard Feynman

I loved this. As I watched this, it made me laugh because I could see the interactions between molecules happen in a dynamic way, and I could also relate it to the lessons I've been taught in chemistry. This is easy for less experienced people to understand and for more experienced people to see their knowledge applied in a different perspective.

I cant even understand what are you talking about,I hope that you can just use the pro terms....... I think the people who are interested in this video already got a certain level of chemistry knowledge.

Yeah I think I could have handled a little more science

if you hate metaphors here is a short answer the oil molecules are too big to mix with the water molecules

Oil floats on water. Step 1: Wait for it to rain. Step 2: Cover yourself in oil. Step 3: Fly.

I like how he used dancing to explain why oil and water don't mix. Love the animation, too.

I feel like I just watched a kids cartoon.

this was dumbed down too much I really could not understand... and I usually get it at the 1st watch

I came here to learn about chemistry. Instead, I learned nothing.

Obviously he's doing something right to have been used by TED Ed while you guys sit here and comment all day lol

"The problem is that the oil molecules are wearing gigantic ball gowns" Oohhh, I see

if i write water and oil dont mix because they dont make great dance partners.... i will definitely fail with teacher laughing at my paper along with students

I don't see how anyone can not get lost somewhere along the analogy. When you're telling the analogy, you should explain what real-world concept each part of the analogy represents either during or after the analogy.

*Oil Floats on water Flashbacks*

John Pollard just subbed my chem class, star struck?

May 2021 "Heaven Stairway" Incident

Great metaphor! It helped me apply scientific terms I am a bit familiar with in order to understand this topic.

This is the weirdest explanation ever. Seriously, what?

so the answer I have to write in exam is they don't mix because they just don't make great partners

These adverts are killing my by the day

made no sense at all, water, salt and oil at a nightclub?

This one was a little too ELI5 for my tastes, the animation was nice however

My car blew a head gasket it did mix pretty good, oops I meant a bad mix.

The music when the oil comes in is weirdly scary

Thanks, TED, for uploading this the day AFTER my Chemistry test! :P

This explanation gets lost in it's own analogy. Really terrible, sorry.

Every now and then I’m reminded of this analogy.

I didn't know that it was possible to make a simple topic like polar and unpolar solvents so difficult...

If anyone wants to know how it actually works: Short version- Water and oil create different types of bonds, so they can't mix. Long version- Water creates a type of bond called hydrogen bond. In a hydrogen bond, the atom connected to the hydrogen (in this case, the oxygen) has a high electronegativity (it pulls electrons hard), which leaves the hydrogen effectively electronless, and therefore positive, while the oxygen gets two extra electrons and becomes negative. NaCl (salt) is made out of positive Na ions and negative Cl ions. when they are in water the Na ions are attracted to the negative oxygen and the Cl ions are attracted to the positive hydrogens, so they seperate and mix with the water. Oil, on the other hand, is held together by van der waals forces, which are affected by the number of electrons in a molecule and are not affected a lot by charge. Soap creates both hydrogen bonds and van der waals interactions, so it can bond with both oil and water, so it can play the middleman and let oil dissolve in water. Seriously TED, I already knew how this works and I had very little idea what you were talking about in the video.

terrible lol.... only makes sense if you already understand lots of chemistry i think

Thank you so much for the analogy! Super helpful!

Ted Ed makes a mixture of knowledge and humor along with visual graphics which makes us grasp the concept and understand it at one glance. Thank you Ted Ed.

So... According to this, salt mixes with water because it can dance good and oil doesn't mix with water because it wears a huge gown and can't dance properly?

TED-Ed too much of animation is distracting and makes it hard to make sense( science) out of it.

Guys, basically, water molecules are moving. When sugar is mixed with water, the sugar breaks into small pieces and gets dragged by other water molecules, thus dissolving. The movement between water molecules is crucial, however oil molecules disruppt that, so water pushes the oil up to keep the bond. That is why they never mix

A remake of this video is necessary to explain this important phenomenon.

DJ ENTROPY :)

This doesn't deserve this much hate, the analogy is good and the idea of the dance floor is brilliant. Kudos to John Pollard and Andrew Foerster

The analogies in this video are top level

I can keep on thinking that one bottle in the background looks like a glass teapot stuck on a glass pole

*reads the title* Me: Oh okay, it's gonna be interesting *after watching the video* Me: hmm...So that's what it is. Pfft Who am i kidding I did not Understand anything

worst ted ed video I've watched

As far as using this video to introduce a complex idea such as entropy to students at a level that is below being able to fully explain how it works I think this video is great! It broke down a very complex set of ideas and laws and rules and made it an approachable concept to begin thinking about. It hurts my soul to hear molecules being talked about as being "happy" or "sad" but overall I think this is a very helpful video, good job Dr. Pollard, you make me love chemistry!

This is a great introduction to the concept of entropy as it relates to chemical properties. In high school, I was only told that "entropy is disorder." After studying chemistry in college, I have a much deeper understanding that allows me to appreciate the beauty in this seemingly simple analogy. Entropy is a very abstract concept, and this video does a good job of making the ideas more tangible, particularly for high school students just starting to study chemistry.

loved the metaphor...

not once did you even mention polarity and non-polarity.....

Thank you for breaking it down like that...

my teacher showed it to my class.. we never laughed that hard! it was awesome.

I have no damn of what so ever this guy is talking about. Only thing I understand is the title of the video.

Simple. Oil has much density than water, that's why you can't mix oil to water.

am i the only one that finds straightforward explanations rly easy to understand and cant get shit out of analogies and stuff

sometimes being technical is more easy to understand.

This is a bit silly. No mention of differing densities or hydrophylic/hydrophobic effects.

It's kinda amusing to see everyone in the comments being frustrated over the same thing as I am :D :D This video got so oversimplified that it was actually harder for me to understand it. The entire time I had to convert the analogy into real scientific terms

I am still in Primary, and this video's explanation actually helped me understand this concept a lot easier.

Building off of what Sebastian posted, ΔH refers to the energetics, ΔS refers to the entropy and ΔG is a term that combines the two to make an overall prediction. With salt+water, ΔH is + meaning it is not favored by energetics so entropy (or configurations through random motion as the vid describes) is what drives salt to dissolve. For oi+water, the ΔH is nearly zero so it is the entropy that drives the two to separate...hence the analogy.

love the analogies great way to teach by relating to something most people do every week :)

Wow this is an amazing example I love it 😀

check that water molecule in the background at 4:06. that guy is seriously POUNDING IT!!

step 1. oil floats on water step 2. wait for it to rain step 3. cover yourself in oil step 4. fly

Very Bad Analogy! Time has been wasTED.

This is a stupid example

The analogy is meant to create a visual for what entropy is on the molecular level (which is often misunderstood). Basically what the video is stating is that the mixed state of oil and water is of lower entropy than the unmixed state. So the non-mixing is driven by entropy not by the strength of attractive forces between molecules. The analogy is meant describe entropy which is not so easy when configurational stability leads to separation.

and this was somehow more satisfying than "why?" "chemistry!"? Could have as well left it at that.

So salts are ... Asian people????

Very dissatisfying .

I was waiting for the explanation... yep, still waiting

Everything is so perfect, the script, music, narration and all those cute animations. 😍😘 Thank you ted ed I learnt a lot.

This was like a video not made by TED-Ed. It was horrible.

horrible explanation!

The ball gown is a lipid layer that it charged so I can't let molecules in or join others. Whereas a table salt or sodium chloride is much smaller and not charged carbon bound molecule that easily enters the uncharged surface layer of water

I wish those videos were longer

this is the worst explanation ive ever heard!

guy: water and oil don't make great dance partners me: what about chocky milk

The emulsifier would be a molecule that can engage in the H-bonding dance with water AND effectively dance with oil. Using the analogy, the emulsifier would reduce the frustration that the water experiences with the large and poorly dancing oils being around AND reduces the bad feelings the oils have by being segregated by pulling them onto the dance floor in small groups to dance. The emulsifier is an extremely versatile dancer that helps oil and water mix. Again, it is driven by entropy.

Thank you for this video! This is very interesting to know.