Display your awesome magic power over pepper!

To do this trick, prepare beforehand by rubbing one of your fingers with a little dishwashing liquid. Just a little drop will do!  Don’t tell anyone you’ve done this.

Then, get a glass or shallow bowl or pan of water (be careful not to get your soapy finger in it) and a friend.

1.  Sprinkle some pepper on top of the water. It should float. (If it doesn’t, create a diversion and start a different trick, because this one won't work.)

   

    

2. Challenge your friend to stick a finger in the water (gently) and test their power to to make the pepper leave. It shouldn’t go anywhere; if you’re lucky, it will stick to their finger.

   
   Your friend's finger!

    

3. Now YOU try it, with your secret weapon, the soapy finger.  Be dramatic: say, "I command all the pepper to flee from me!"  And it will.

   
   Your finger!
   

What’s going on here?

Water molecules on the surface of a glass of water pull together in a kind of skin (called surface tension)--that's what the pepper rests on. But detergent on your finger breaks this up. As the soap spreads out in a circle, it pushes the still-tense peppery surface out, so the pepper seems to flee.