All you need is a frying pan, a functional stove, a box of matches and, well, some water to play with

Feb 17, 2015 13:17 GMT  ·  By

For those of you who happen to have some free time on your hands this glorious day, here is what you can do to keep yourselves entertained: pretend you are a student at Hogwarts and make water levitate.

To achieve this, you only need a frying pan, a functional stove, some matches to start a fire, and a few droplets of water to play with. No, this is no joke, this is actual, real science.

Take the frying pan, gently place it on the stove over an open flame and wait until it heats to at least 200 degrees Celsius (about 400 degrees Fahrenheit). After this, just sprinkle water in it and you're pretty much done.

As detailed in the video below, the water droplets will begin to levitate almost as soon as they hit the pan. This is because, due to all the heat heading their way, a teeny tiny cloud of vapor will form right under them.

If you expect to see the water droplets moving in circles high in the air all around your kitchen, you will undoubtedly be disappointed. You will, however, notice them swirling around in the frying pan, not touching it.

This odd behavior that water and other liquids display when coming into contact with seriously hot surfaces was first documented in the 18th century by a physicist named Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost. Hence, it is known as the Leidenfrost effect.