I love the smell of alkali metals in the morning...
May 30, 2006 8:22 AM   Subscribe

 
By the way there is only about 400 grams of Francium around at any given time, but man what fun that could be.
posted by ozomatli at 8:23 AM on May 30, 2006


Perhaps of interest...
posted by Mr. Six at 8:28 AM on May 30, 2006


damnit, I swear I never saw question or link in AskMe!

*hangs head in shame
posted by ozomatli at 8:32 AM on May 30, 2006


Well I missed the AskMe too so I rather enjoyed this exploding bath tub fun.
posted by dog food sugar at 8:37 AM on May 30, 2006


Doesn't matter that it's a double post. It's awesome stuff. Dog's nuts, indeed.

Also: I love British people. Especially when in lab coats and shouting (with their sophisticated accents): Warning! Warning! Extreme Danger!
posted by aladfar at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2006


arf!
posted by trondant at 8:48 AM on May 30, 2006


Brainiac is a good show to watch on fast forward.
posted by smackfu at 8:49 AM on May 30, 2006


Never saw the show. Does it explain, at some point, the science of the reactions? Or does it just explode bathtubs and call that science?
posted by QuietDesperation at 8:52 AM on May 30, 2006


Metafilter: exploding bathtubs and calling it science
posted by GuyZero at 8:55 AM on May 30, 2006


It's a simple reaction. Just happens to be exothermic so it's good television.
posted by Mr. Six at 8:57 AM on May 30, 2006 [1 favorite]


No, QuietDesperation, they just blow things up, mostly caravans. It's fun for a while, but it gets repetitive quite fast. The presenter dude is Richard Hammond, who's also on Top Gear, which is similar in style, but about cars and much much better. The white-coated guy is Jon Tickle, who is pretty much the only Big Brother ex-housemate who you wouldn't want to kill on sight.
posted by matthewr at 9:00 AM on May 30, 2006


I'm with Quiet and Guy. When I was a kid, I didn't need any prompting to blow things up with gasoline or whatever was at hand. What I could have used was a show that exploited my interest in explosion to, well, teach me something about how explosions work. Good fun, though.
posted by squirrel at 9:09 AM on May 30, 2006


who is pretty much the only Big Brother ex-housemate who you wouldn't want to kill on sight.

OMG. I never knew he was an ex-reality show contestant.
posted by smackfu at 9:22 AM on May 30, 2006


Might want to warn it's a direct link to video, though.
posted by arcticwoman at 9:27 AM on May 30, 2006


Um ... "That video is da bomb."

Did I say that right?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:37 AM on May 30, 2006


Boom = Good.
Deal or No Deal = Bad.
Brit TV wins again!
posted by cows of industry at 9:38 AM on May 30, 2006


I always thought it would be cool to use cesium or rubidium as a fuel source for an under-water turbine engine.
posted by delmoi at 9:48 AM on May 30, 2006


I hate that midget Jeremy Clarkson impersonator. Nice to see that John Tickle is earning a few bob off the back of BB, though - I assumed he went back to being, er, whatever it was he used to be.

Brit TV wins again!

DOND is on in the UK too. Been running longer that it has in the US, in fact. All your daft telly comes from Europe!
posted by jack_mo at 10:03 AM on May 30, 2006


"DOND is on in the UK too. Been running longer that it has in the US, in fact. All your daft telly comes from Europe!"

Hmm, seems like. Can we give it back?
Of course, we added our own hellish twist with the inclusion of Howie Mandel.
*shudder*
posted by cows of industry at 10:59 AM on May 30, 2006


Nice. I liked how the cesium totally destroyed the bathtub. Oh, and the explosions.
posted by OmieWise at 11:22 AM on May 30, 2006


From what I've seen, UK DOND doesn't have the models. How sad.
posted by smackfu at 11:24 AM on May 30, 2006


I hate that midget Jeremy Clarkson impersonator.

Gotta disagree with you jack_mo. Hammond is plenty funny (more so on Top Gear than Brainiac), but the real treat is watching the interaction between Hammond and Clarkson.

/personal opinion

i've often wondered why no movie ever made use of cesium bullet, seems like it would be perfect for some cheesy zombie alien invasion survival horror type flick.
posted by quin at 11:42 AM on May 30, 2006


Pah! James May is cooler than all of 'em. How awesome was his amphibious Triumph Herald...
posted by matthewr at 11:55 AM on May 30, 2006


SCIENCE
posted by loquacious at 1:20 PM on May 30, 2006


Exploding bathtubs = empirical data.

I AM QUOTING SCIENCE!
posted by antifreez_ at 1:37 PM on May 30, 2006


Hammond is plenty funny

Yeah, so is Clarkson. Still hate 'em both. Still watch Top Gear!

amphibious Triumph Herald

Gnnk! Didn't see that. Can't beat a Herald, beautiful car.
posted by jack_mo at 1:44 PM on May 30, 2006


You can watch it here.
posted by matthewr at 2:03 PM on May 30, 2006


Unfortunately it looks like a clip from some obnoxious science show on TV, where they try to jazz it up with annoying music, dramatic pacing and burning video boxes. Anyone using the phrase "dogs nuts of the periodic table" is trying way too hard.

This is just like those documentaries where they stage things with dramatic recreations, with shaky cameras and angles and dramatic music, to try to overcome percieved audience apathy. It just SUCKS.
posted by JHarris at 2:22 PM on May 30, 2006


It just SUCKS.

I'm sorry, were we watching the same clip? Did you somehow miss the EXPLODING BATHTUBS?!

Seriously, would you have preferred that they discuss the state of the Pacific Rim economy with shaky cameras and angles and dramatic music with exploding bathtubs? Maybe then you would have been happy with the post. Elitist!
posted by antifreez_ at 2:27 PM on May 30, 2006


where does one get francium?
posted by dopamine at 3:26 PM on May 30, 2006


JHarris, I think you might be taking this too seriously for what it is. It's like the part of chemistry class where the professor does the cool experiments, but without the part afterwards where he explains what happened. It is very hard to learn anything from Brainiac. It ROCKS.
posted by smackfu at 3:37 PM on May 30, 2006


Bananas are supposed to be a great source of potassium. How disappointing that they do not explode in the cornflakes.
posted by Cranberry at 3:41 PM on May 30, 2006


Dopamine, Francium occurs naturally as a result of the radioactive decay of actinium. There's not a lot of it around, and I'd guess the best place to look would near where there's uranium.
posted by matthewr at 3:51 PM on May 30, 2006


where does one get francium?

You don't. The longest-lasting isotope has a half-life of 22 minutes, so all you get are incredibly trace amounts that exist as part of decay chains. See here.
posted by raygirvan at 4:06 PM on May 30, 2006


So if I dropped a chunk of francium into a bathtub, it wouldn't just blow up the tub, it would blow up the tub IN AN ORGY OF ATOMIC FURY?!?!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:50 PM on May 30, 2006


speaking of DOND, is there a rule that the contestants (and their family members/supporters) must wear matching solid-colored shirts?

or is it just by some strange coincidence that they all do?
posted by pruner at 7:32 PM on May 30, 2006


Seriously, would you have preferred that they discuss the state of the Pacific Rim economy with shaky cameras and angles and dramatic music with exploding bathtubs? Maybe then you would have been happy with the post. Elitist!

Yeah, yeah, sure, call me what you want, you're really going to convince me that way. I just happen to think that the science (and explosions too, sure) are cool without having to jazz it up in the process, are in fact seem all the cooler when you don't try to find a way to inject the words "dog's nuts" into it. I mean, how is that different from saying, ultimately, "Woo-hoo! It's TUNGSTEN!"
posted by JHarris at 7:58 PM on May 30, 2006


Man, Tungesten is sweet. Whoo hoo Tungsten (or Wolfstrum if you prefer)!!! My coworker just got done doing a lot of work on Tungsten (for plasma diagnostics and whatnot) it's a tricky sonuvabitch.

btw dog's nut is a pretty common phrase in the UK think of it as the the equivalent of the bee's knees, or wasp's nippples.

Not everything in life needs to be textbook. Hell it was crazy ass physics teacher in high school shooting tennis balls at us while driving by in his truck that helped cement my love of physics. Whatever it takes to pique interest.
posted by ozomatli at 8:33 PM on May 30, 2006


Man, Tungesten is sweet.

No, that's sugar you're thinking of. Tungsten tastes like tung, of course.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:36 PM on May 30, 2006


What this thread really needs is a link to that guy who has a habit of chucking fist sized and babyhead sized chunks of sodium into his private lake.

No, seriously. He makes some seriously gigantic sodium-water explosions. They make that cesium-bathtub explosion look like a little kid's popgun.
posted by loquacious at 8:37 PM on May 30, 2006


I think I'm going to use "babyhead sized" as a unit of measure from now on.

"I'll take a babyhead's worth of coleslaw, please."

"I'm looking for a shelf and brackets, maybe two babyheads deep by four wide."
posted by five fresh fish at 1:36 PM on May 31, 2006


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