Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Three Little Cranberries

I'm in the process of rescuing my physics articles form internet obscurity using the Wayback machine and I found this little gem I wrote for an article about osmosis:

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The Three Little Cranberries

In order to remember the different states important in osmosis, consider the following "fairytale":

The first little cranberry, named Hypertonic, stayed out in the sun too long. He lost all the water from inside his little red body and became shrunken and wrinkled. His body became plasmolyzed.

The second little cranberry, named Hypotonic, fell asleep soaking in the hot-tub. When he woke up his body had absorbed a lot of water and he was fat and his skin was very tight, ready to burst. His body became turgid.

The third little cranberry, Isotonic, was smart. He stayed inside all day and studied his physics textbook. His body remained flaccid.

This isn't an exact match to what happens in osmosis, but it will give you a visual hook to remember the results on a cell immersed in each type of medium

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