Coincidentally, I like using the bespoke sodium forks that the commoners fashion for me!
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So youāre saying that itās a crime against humanity, as opposed to a crime against fish.
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Would NOT have been the same without that music!
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Thatās rather generous given the lack of eye protection.
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You noticed too!
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Yup. Nice thick nitrile gloves to protect the hands but nothing on the face in case something explodes. You know, like the metallic sodium he was holding.
Oh, high school chemistry. How I miss thee.
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I see nobody is asking the important questions - when it comes to skipping objects across the water, do you count the secondaries as skips, or only the primary?
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So a chlorine atom says to a sodium atom, āYou gave me an electron!ā
The sodium atom says, āAre you sure?ā
The chlorine atom says, āWell Iām not positive.ā
Iāll show myself out.
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Famous last words for most Darwin award winners.
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So lame. The only new thing here is that this is probably the only guy that never learned to skip something across a body of water.
Okay, cool video, but did they have to invite Santa Claus?
Um, Iām pretty sure they identify as ions.
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That story is part of the reason why the ACS is coming up with guidlines for chemical demonstrations. Thereās a terrible story of a girl who was set on fire because her instructor was doing color flame tests as part of a demonstration, and she kept a giant jug of flammable methanol right next to the actual demo. Disaster ensued rather predictably. The girl lived, fortunately, and now has a methanol tattoo. I have to run, otherwise Iād find the link for you, but yeah- chemical demos can be dangerous if youāre not careful.
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Oh man, thatās just bad lab-keeping. Shaaame. No safety officer for the lab? Not all their procedures that start off with:
Step 1. Clear your workspace and check both above and below for interesting chemicals that might pose a risk?
Also, when I was in high school chem, anything we were doing that could offgas, go rapidly exothermic, or likely catch on fire was done in one of the labās two fume hoods. We didnāt have gas taps on the wall. The most dangerous stuff we did outside of the fumehood was stuff like brass plating pennies.
Oh, there was the time we made fragrances from methyl ethyl ketone and various high-order alcohols. And that was dangerous because one idiot tried drinking the sample of pentanol and wretched all over the eyewash station. Dumbass.
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If it helps, consider that eggs arenāt actually noted for either their exceptional wisdom or rugged durability.
When I was in high school, my chemistry teacher was one of those bizarre, old-school chemistry teachers.
He used to keep a jug of picric acid in the supply area, which amazingly enough he had bought at a yard sale. Whenever we had to go and get something heās always say āboys, be careful around that jug. Itās explosive.ā
Years later, after college I was back in my home town visiting my mother, watching the local news, when a story came on about a bomb squad that had been dispatched to a local high school because of some high-explosives that the then-current chemistry professor had found.
Guess he wasnāt particularly old-school!
ā¦ why we canāt have cool things anymoreā¦
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The reality is that a lot of high schools donāt have fume hoods or well stocked labs for students to use. Part of it is overblown concerns about liability, and the other part is expense. Fume hoods arenāt just expensive to buy, but when theyāre running open, (i.e. being used) they consume what is scientifically known as āa fucktonā of electricity. Basically as much as your house is probably using right now. For one hood.
We had a guy who got HCl in his eye because he wasnāt wearing goggles. Fortunately he got to an eye wash station pretty quick. Had a patch over his eye for like a week. One of my professors admitted to me that she hasnāt worn safety goggles in years. Thatās so strange to me, itās the one thing Iām always careful about, and thatās not just with chemistry, but with using a table saw or eating abnormally sharp Pringles.
In any case, hereās the video I was talking about earlier:
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Seriously, you only got the two of them, and theyāre just so squishy and fragile. I had a biology teacher show us Un Chien Andalou before we started dissecting our mud puppies, and made it clear that if he caught any of us without our goggles, weād be spending the next several biology classes re-watching Un Chien Andalou and then writing its screenplay and submitting it to his best bud the theater director for grading.
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