These should make quite a loud bang
March 28, 2024 8:59 AM Subscribe
"Discover the evolution of explosive chemical experiments, with the maestro of chemistry Andrew Szydlo." Explosive chemistry - with Andrew Szydlo [1h]
Andrew Szydlo is a chemist and secondary school teacher at Highgate School, well-loved by pupils and Ri attendees alike. He has given public lectures around the country, been featured on TV shows and has become a popular part of the Ri's YouTube channel in recent years, where his videos have over 16 million views in total.
Andrew Szydlo is a chemist and secondary school teacher at Highgate School, well-loved by pupils and Ri attendees alike. He has given public lectures around the country, been featured on TV shows and has become a popular part of the Ri's YouTube channel in recent years, where his videos have over 16 million views in total.
As soon as he said purple crystals, I said potassium permanganate!!! When I was in high school somebody did this in a small cardboard box in the school cafeteria at lunch. It’s good to see such enthusiasm in teaching and also fire and explosives.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:23 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:23 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
We tried to figure out how to make nitrogen triiodide, never accomplished it, which is probably a good thing.
But you could break up those Estes rocket engines, and pack it into a pipe, and make some pretty solid explosions...
posted by Windopaene at 9:25 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
But you could break up those Estes rocket engines, and pack it into a pipe, and make some pretty solid explosions...
posted by Windopaene at 9:25 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
weird how the internet now immediately chills my desire to watch the internet.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:49 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:49 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
Does anyone remember the pink-to-blue color-changing “weather predictors” that were everywhere in the 60s? (Picture a poodle figurine with “fur” that changed color depending on moisture, kind of like a mood ring for the air.)
My Christmas chemistry set instructed me to use diluted potassium permanganate to create such pastel humidity monitors—lovely, if poisonous, gifts. Great fun.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:14 AM on March 28
My Christmas chemistry set instructed me to use diluted potassium permanganate to create such pastel humidity monitors—lovely, if poisonous, gifts. Great fun.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:14 AM on March 28
Those of us who were around in the earlier, more dangerous times, will remember chemistry sets and all the fun and excitement they presented along with the push for more curiosity and exploration of chemistry. There was a book of experiments published back then that pushed the boundaries of safety for those brave or stupid enough to try them. It got banned, but there is a pdf of it floating around the dangerous (see above comment by MonsieurPEB above) internet that you may track down. I found it about 15 or more years ago. It’s on a hard drive in the other room. Take a look at chemistry sets now… Fun with water! The dangers of vinegar and baking soda! Sort of sad, but probably better. I don’t really remember any stories about child mad scientists blowing themselves or other things up back then. Some kids across the street made Drano bombs, mason jar with water and Drano, a good exothermic reaction, the jar exploded. Maybe curiosity needs the dramatic, the bangs and the flares, to get the brain juices flowing?
posted by njohnson23 at 10:37 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 10:37 AM on March 28 [1 favorite]
In addition to all the weird chemicals, you could buy a slab of asbestos to set your hot beakers on. The 60s were the golden age of chemistry sets.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:04 PM on March 28
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:04 PM on March 28
Asbestos is entirely NOT a dangerous thing to have around as long as it is not in particulate form.
posted by hippybear at 12:11 PM on March 28
posted by hippybear at 12:11 PM on March 28
I have that book! Some of the pages are slightly burned from flames or acid spills...
Another book (or set thereof) I remember fondly from the 70's was the Chemical Formulary. My local library had the series. IIRC some of the volumes were oriented to a specific industry, so the mining one had instructions on making explosives, blasting caps, etc.
My friends and I used to make some of the things (I remember mercuric fulminate specifically) and amazingly never managed to injure ourselves.
posted by foonly at 12:15 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]
Another book (or set thereof) I remember fondly from the 70's was the Chemical Formulary. My local library had the series. IIRC some of the volumes were oriented to a specific industry, so the mining one had instructions on making explosives, blasting caps, etc.
My friends and I used to make some of the things (I remember mercuric fulminate specifically) and amazingly never managed to injure ourselves.
posted by foonly at 12:15 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]
The tabletops in our jewelry making class were solid asbestos sheet. In those days we all smoked in class and rested our Marlboros on the asbestos. Oh, and we used cadmium filled solder. It flowed better.
posted by Czjewel at 12:18 PM on March 28
posted by Czjewel at 12:18 PM on March 28
When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.
When you're ready, Derek Lowe is ready for you over at his blog, Things I Won't Work With.
An excerpt on 1-diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole:
When you're ready, Derek Lowe is ready for you over at his blog, Things I Won't Work With.
An excerpt on 1-diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole:
"The compound exploded in solution, it exploded on any attempts to touch or move the solid, and (most interestingly) it exploded when they were trying to get an infrared spectrum of it. The papers mention several detonations inside the Raman spectrometer as soon as the laser source was turned on, which must have helped the time pass more quickly."posted by JoeZydeco at 12:57 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]
My favorite Derek Lowe is "Sand Won't Save You This Time" on chlorine trifluoride.
"I’ll let the late John Clark describe the stuff, since he had first-hand experience in attempts to use it as rocket fuel. From his out-of-print classic Ignition! we have:
'It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively.' "
posted by indexy at 1:09 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
"I’ll let the late John Clark describe the stuff, since he had first-hand experience in attempts to use it as rocket fuel. From his out-of-print classic Ignition! we have:
'It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively.' "
posted by indexy at 1:09 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
The montage of photographs of explosions in the middle of the talk is the thing of the dreams of many people in this thread.
posted by hippybear at 1:29 PM on March 28
posted by hippybear at 1:29 PM on March 28
When a friend and I decided, as college freshmen in the late '60s, that we wanted to mess around with thermite, we went to Van Waters and Rogers in Denver with cash and bought several pounds of aluminum powder and rust powder along with a few yards of magnesium ribbon to ignite it.
They didn’t ask our names or what we wanted to do with it. We gave them the money and they pushed the heavy jars across the counter to us and we left. We didn’t do anything dangerous or damage property, but it was moderately fun to dig a deep but narrow hole in bare and rocky ground, put the thermite in the bottom with a magnesium fuse coming up to the surface, fill the hole with a mixture of gravel and small stones, then go out in the middle of the night, light it and watch the show.
We also made quite a bit of nitrogen triiodide, but it was tricky because you had to filter the precipitate out of the mixture immediately as it formed or it would go on to react with something else as you dawdled and you’d be left with nothing.
It wasn’t that powerful, and we planned to use it in a prank where we'd put it on the floor after my friend's roommate went to sleep so that he would step on it in his bare feet when he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom,
I insisted on a test run to make sure it wouldn’t really hurt him, and I was the Guinea pig. It stung the bottoms of my bare feet quite a bit (don’t ask me why I stepped on all of the wads after the first few cuz I really don’t know the answer) and I ended up with big purple stains on the bottoms of my feet which lasted for weeks. We didn’t pull the prank because I was afraid he’d be so startled he could lose his balance and hit his head.
posted by jamjam at 3:41 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
They didn’t ask our names or what we wanted to do with it. We gave them the money and they pushed the heavy jars across the counter to us and we left. We didn’t do anything dangerous or damage property, but it was moderately fun to dig a deep but narrow hole in bare and rocky ground, put the thermite in the bottom with a magnesium fuse coming up to the surface, fill the hole with a mixture of gravel and small stones, then go out in the middle of the night, light it and watch the show.
We also made quite a bit of nitrogen triiodide, but it was tricky because you had to filter the precipitate out of the mixture immediately as it formed or it would go on to react with something else as you dawdled and you’d be left with nothing.
It wasn’t that powerful, and we planned to use it in a prank where we'd put it on the floor after my friend's roommate went to sleep so that he would step on it in his bare feet when he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom,
I insisted on a test run to make sure it wouldn’t really hurt him, and I was the Guinea pig. It stung the bottoms of my bare feet quite a bit (don’t ask me why I stepped on all of the wads after the first few cuz I really don’t know the answer) and I ended up with big purple stains on the bottoms of my feet which lasted for weeks. We didn’t pull the prank because I was afraid he’d be so startled he could lose his balance and hit his head.
posted by jamjam at 3:41 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
Bit of a family story with acetylene. My grandfather worked at British Oxygen's Cricklewood (London) works during the war. Acetylene for welding and cutting was in heavy demand, so cylinders had to be filled very quickly. Unfortunately, a few cylinders would (I'm not clear on how this happened) start to burn inside, and these had to be rolled outside to a rack where a firehose would play on them until they went out --- or launched themselves into the neighbouring housing estate. There was compensation from the government as war damage, but questions were asked why this neighbourhood in Cricklewood would suffer bomb damage without any air-raid warnings ...
posted by scruss at 4:34 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 4:34 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]
Unfortunately, a few cylinders would (I'm not clear on how this happened) start to burn inside, and these had to be rolled outside to a rack where a firehose would play on them until they went out --- or launched themselves into the neighbouring housing estate.
Very interesting, scruss.
I did not know this, but acetylene can self-combust, forming carbon black (very finely divided carbon) and pure hydrogen.
Another page I’m not linking to because the snippet I want to show appears on the search page but is hidden when you click, gives conditions for this to begin as 1 atm. and 530° C, so rapid filling must heat the acetylene up enough by compressing the gas in the cylinder sometimes for this reaction to begin at whatever pressure is in the cylinder.
posted by jamjam at 6:08 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
Very interesting, scruss.
I did not know this, but acetylene can self-combust, forming carbon black (very finely divided carbon) and pure hydrogen.
Another page I’m not linking to because the snippet I want to show appears on the search page but is hidden when you click, gives conditions for this to begin as 1 atm. and 530° C, so rapid filling must heat the acetylene up enough by compressing the gas in the cylinder sometimes for this reaction to begin at whatever pressure is in the cylinder.
posted by jamjam at 6:08 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
I love imagining how hippybear has slowly cultivated my youtube feed
posted by rubatan at 7:23 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
posted by rubatan at 7:23 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]
Oh dear god, how horrifying! My youtube feed is 10% stuff from creators I like, 10% interesting new stuff, and 80% bullshit that I wonder why the fuck YouTube even.... *sigh*
If I'm cultivating your youtube feed, I hope it ends up being refined gold compared to the dross and bullshit I'm sorting through.
posted by hippybear at 7:40 PM on March 28
If I'm cultivating your youtube feed, I hope it ends up being refined gold compared to the dross and bullshit I'm sorting through.
posted by hippybear at 7:40 PM on March 28
When a friend started dating a metals geologist, I asked “why is gold found in veins, all collected together for us?” He explained “oh that’s actually kinda easy. There are places like Yellowstone in the ancient past that are volcanically active, heat creating pressure and cracks, but also these cracks filling with chloride and sulfur from below and water, creating hydrochloric and sulfuric acids. The gold dissolves out of the rock and migrates to the cracks. The fluid evaporates leaving hyper-enriched ‘bonanza’ deposits in the cracks.”
While there are slight modifications of this theory, maybe you’re the aqua regia purifying the dross algorithm that’s other wise skewing right-wing pipeline YouTube. My partner has wondered if it’s possible to seed someone’s tiktok just by bombing them with alternate discourses…
posted by rubatan at 9:39 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]
While there are slight modifications of this theory, maybe you’re the aqua regia purifying the dross algorithm that’s other wise skewing right-wing pipeline YouTube. My partner has wondered if it’s possible to seed someone’s tiktok just by bombing them with alternate discourses…
posted by rubatan at 9:39 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]
You are entirely too kind, but I am glad you appreciate the gems I do find and share here. I'm always waiting for the algorithm to surprise me and sometimes it does in amazing ways.
posted by hippybear at 1:58 PM on March 29
posted by hippybear at 1:58 PM on March 29
« Older Exposed The true story of a lost documentary. | They are risen Newer »
posted by whatevernot at 9:14 AM on March 28 [2 favorites]