THE STUDY OF SEEING IF SUNSCREEN AFFECTS HO W THE RADIOMETER SPINS Shane Hoffman Cary Academy

ABSTRACT The purpose of this experiment was to find out if applying more and more sunscreen to a radiometer affects how long it spins. A radiometer has four vanes suspended in a glass bulb, and when light is shined on it, the four vanes spin around. The more light that is added, the more it spins; but, it was found out that the more sunscreen that is applied, the less it spins. A possibility of why it spins less when sunscreen is added is the organic and nonorganic ingredients in the sun screen are absorbing the flashlight light; just like they do to the real sun.

INTRODUCTION A radiometer is an amazing invention. It has four vanes suspended inside of a glass bulb. When it is put in bright sunlight, the vanes spin very fast. The key to its success is the good vacuum hidden inside of the glass bulb. If there was no vacuum, the bulb would be full of air, and the vanes would not spin because there is too much pressure. But, if there is an almost perfect vacuum, the vanes would not spin unless they are held in a frictionless way. A good but incomplete vacuum is what makes the radiometer work the best. The vanes rotate when exposed to light, with intense light meaning more rapidly spin. The vanes have white on one side and black on the other. When exposed to sunlight, the vanes spin with the black sides running away from the light and the white side advancing. When it is cooled, the radiometer does the opposite. The radiometer spins because of this thing called thermal transpiration. Thermal transpiration is just heat moving around. There are two parts to the radiometer. There is

the cold white side and the hot black side. When a light gets shined on it, the light causes the radiometer to spin, due to the heat moving around. Another cool thing is sunscreen. Sunscreen works by combining organic and inorganic active ingredients. Examples of inorganic ingredients are zinc oxide and titanium oxide. They reflect and scatter the ultraviolet (also known as UV) radiation. Organic ingredients, such as octyl methoxycinnamate and oxybenzone, absorb the UV radiation and then they scatter it randomly as heat. UV radiation has three types of wavelengths. They are UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C. UV-A is the strongest type of wavelengths. It is not absorbed by the atmospheres ozone layer, and it penetrates the skin more deeply than the UV-B. Sometimes, it causes skin cancer. The UV-B is the second type of wavelength. It is partially blocked by the ozone layer, but it is responsible for sunburns. The third is the weakest type of wavelength; it is completely absorbed by the ozone layer, it almost never gets past the atmosphere. The Sun Protection Factor, or SPF, is very important when dealing with sunscreen. The Sun Protection Factor measures how effectively the sunscreens formula protects skin from the UV-B rays. SPF does not measure the UV-A rays, the sunscreen is not powerful enough to even block one hundred percent of the UV-B rays. Here is how to tell how SPF works. Some unprotected human skin will take twenty min. to get burned. 15 SPF means it takes 15 times longer for the skin to get burned. Therefore, the skin can stay out 5 hours longer. Here is some more info about the sun. The sun is just another one of the stars in space. But, without the sun, nothing would survive. It would be incredibly cold! How does it make its heat and light? Well, the suns heat and light come from its incredibly hot surface, and extremely hot core. The sun is mostly made out of hydrogen gas. In fact, it is so hot in the core that atoms of hydrogen bump into each other and make another gas called helium. When this happens, huge amounts of heat and light energy are given off. The sun burns up about 700 million tons of hydrogen every second, while this is happening. But, the sun has so much hydrogen it wont burn out until another 5 billion years. How the suns heat travels all the way to earth is a really neat thing. The only way that heat can travel through space and to the earth is by radiation. It travels in

invisible rays and can reach the earth in about 8.5 minutes. But, not that much heat actually reaches the earth. Some heat gets lost on its way, others get reflected back into space, and most of it just gets absorbed by the earths atmosphere. The moon is a lot hotter because it doesnt have any atmosphere to block the sun. There is a thing called the electromagnetic spectrum. The easy answer is that it has to deal with light. This is the more elaborate answer. The electromagnetic spectrum is made up of gamma rays, microwaves, radio waves, ultraviolet radiation, and other types of wave lengths. These gamma rays, microwaves, and such are all electromagnetic waves. A Scottish physicist named James Clark Maxwell found about these waves, which use combination of electricity and magnetism to spread through space. He also found out that the speed of these electromagnetic waves is the same as the speed of light. So, he guessed that light consisted in electromagnetic waves. The electromagnetic spectrum is made up of different types of wavelengths. Gamma rays are at the short end of the wavelengths and radio waves are at the long end. Ultraviolet radiation and visible light are about at the middle.

Figure 1 Electromagnetic Spectrum

Tori Banks did a study on whether or not sunscreen has an effect on the color of UV beads. Sunscreen protects skin from the sun. Banks tested this by putting different amounts of fingers worth of sunscreen on the UV beads to test the color intensity of the beads. She found out that the more fingers of sunscreen that she put on, the lower the

color intensity of the beads. This shows that the more sunscreen is applied, the less likely it is for human skin to get burned. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this experiment, 15 SPF sunscreen, 30 SPF sunscreen, 100 SPF sunscreen, 1 mL teaspoon, 2mL teaspoon, 5 mL teaspoon, flashlight, radiometer, and Blistex lip balm 15 SPF were used in this experiment. First, a flashlight was turned on and shined on the radiometer for one minute. Then the flashlight was turned off, and how long the radiometer spins was timed by a timer. That determined the control of this experiment. After that, 30 SPF sunscreen was measured in a teaspoon that measures in mL. 3 mL of the sunscreen was placed on the radiometer. Then a flashlight was shined on the radiometer for one minute. The flashlight was turned horizontal, so that it is not shining above the radiometer. The distance between the flashlight and the radiometer is 8 cm. After one minute, the timer was started and how long the radiometer spins was timed. This was done three times and an average was taken. After that, the same method was done. But this time 2 more mL of sunscreen was placed on the radiometer, so it now has five mL of sunscreen on it. This was done three times and an average was taken. For the next experiment, it is a lot like the first experiment. But this time, the flashlight was only 1-2 cm away from the radiometer. The flashlight was also shined on the top of the radiometer, not the side. Also, only 1 mL of sunscreen was put on the radiometer. What is changing is the SPF. First, 1 mL of 15 SPF sunscreen was placed on the radiometer. The same method as the first experiment was done, but with 1 mL of 15 SPF sunscreen instead. This was done 3 times, and an average was taken. Then, the same process from the first experiment was done, but 1 mL of 30 SPF sunscreen was used. This was done 3 times and an average was taken. This method will be done one last time, but this time, 1 mL of 100 SPF sunscreen was used. This was done 3 times and an average was taken. In the third experiment, multiple coatings of lip balm were placed on the radiometer to see if more lip balm, means more protection. First, 0 coatings was done. Then, 1

coating of Blistex 15 spf lip balm was placed on the radiometer. Then, the flashlight was 8 cm away from the radiometer, but it only shined on the radiometer for 30 sec. Then, the flashlight was turned off, and how long the radiometer spun was timed with a timer. This was done 3 times and an average was taken. This process was done with 1 coatings, 2 coatings, and 3 coatings of lip balm. It was made sure that each coating was about the same amount. Each coating was done three times and an average was taken. For the fourth experiment, no sunscreen was put on the radiometer. The purpose of the experiment was to find out what happens when a flashlight is shined on a radiometer for different amounts of time. The flashlight was shined on the radiometer for 15 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 60 sec. Each time was done three times (15 sec, 15 sec, 15 sec) and an average was taken for each of them. For the fifth experiment, there was a test done on what happens when the distance between the flashlight and the radiometer is lengthened and shortened. No sunscreen was put on the radiometer and the flashlight was shined on the radiometer for 30 sec. The same process as the first experiment was done, but the flashlight length away from the radiometer was 2 cm away, then 5 cm away, then 10 cm, then 15 cm, and then 20 cm. Each different difference was done 3 times and an average was taken for all of them. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The radiometer was found to spin less when more sunscreen was added. When 0 mL was put on the radiometer, it spun the most. (45 sec) When 5 mL was placed on the radiometer it spun the least. (14-15 sec) Thats a 30 sec. drop just from putting on 5 mL of sunscreen! This 30 sec. drop is most likely because of the sunscreen. The organic and nonorganic are absorbing this weak light, and without light, the radiometer cant spin. The only reason the radiometer is still spinning is because the sunscreen is covering all the radiometer. Its only 5 mL; it cant cover the whole thing.

Figure 2 This shows that adding more sunscreen, means less spinning.

The higher the SPF of the sunscreen, the less the radiometer spun. The radiometer spun the least when 15 SPF was placed on the radiometer. (35 sec) But, the radiometer shot down to 19 sec. when 100 SPF was placed on it. This is the least amount of spin time. It is thought that the 100 SPF made it spin the least because it has the highest SPF. 100 spf means that this sunscreen will allow human skin to stay in the sun 100 times longer then how long it takes for average skin to get burned. When this really powerful sunscreen with really powerful ingredients is put on the radiometer, obviously it is going to make the radiometer spin less than the 15 SPF sunscreen.

Figure 3 This graph shows that the higher spf sunscreen put on, the less it spins.

The longer the flashlight shines on the radiometer, the more it spins. It was found out that when the flashlight shined on the radiometer for 60 sec. it spun the most. (45 sec.) But, when the flashlight was shined on the radiometer for a low amount of time (like 15 or 30 sec), it spun the least. The most likely reason this is the case, is because the radiometer runs on the light from the sun. If the flashlight is shined for 60 sec. worth it is going to spin a lot. But, if flashlight is only shined for 15 sec., it isnt going to spin that much.

Figure 4 This graph shows the more light the radiometer gets, the more it spins.

It was found out that the farther away the flashlight is from the radiometer is the less it spins. This graph shows that is the flashlight is only 2 cm away; the flashlight shines for about 22 sec. But when as the flashlight is brought farther away, the spin time decreases. A reasonable answer to this would be depth. If theres a really big light but its really far away, it isnt very big and looks like a speck. But as it is brought closer and closer, the light gets bigger and brighter. It is most likely that the radiometer spins less

when the light is farther away, because the light gets smaller.

Figure 4 As the light gets farther away, the spin time is smaller.

CONCLUSION It was found out that any amount of sunscreen, and any number of SPF makes the radiometer spin less; although bigger amounts of sunscreen and SPFs makes it spin the least. These results are important because they show that the more sunscreen applied, the more protection from the sun there is. (That can help with sunburns.) It was predicted that 5 mL of sunscreen will make the radiometer spin the least. This is correct, because 5 mL made it spin for 14 sec., which is the lowest amount of spinning time. To follow up this experiment, a sheet of paper could be placed in front of the flashlight. This could make some clouds and it could be found out if its better to go outside when there is a lot of clouds, rather than not a lot of clouds. CITATIONS: Aspinwall, Cary. "Here comes the sun: Avoid skin damaging rays with SPF blocks." Tulsa World (OK) 18 June 2009: Newspaper Source. Web. 14 Feb. 2012 Dictionary team. http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com. Ask.com, Copyright 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. Ganeri, Anita. Outdoor science. New York: Dillon Press, 1993. Print.

"How does a Crookes radiometer work?" 01 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. http://science.howstuffworks.com/question239.htm, 14 February 2012. Library of Congress. How does sunscreen work? Everyday Mysteries. The library of Congress, 7 Aug. 2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. Macmillan revised encyclopedia of science : v.1, Matter and energy. New York: Macmillan, 1997. Print. Banks, Tori. THE STUDY OF HOW SUNSCREEN AFFECTS THE COLOR OF UV BEADS. Cary Academy. 2011. Wikipedia contributors. "Crookes radiometer." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.