Breaking Bad's Scientific Consultant On Making Meth and More

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Science sat down with Breaking Bad science consultant Donna Nelson, an organic chemist at the University of Oklahoma. Nelson was one of several expert advisers for the show who began consulting several episodes in on multiple topics, including how to make Walt a realistic chemist. She discusses the accuracy of the show, whether making meth is as straightforward as it seems on the series, and her favorite scene."

Re:Making meth is even easier

[Travis Mansbridge]

Joffrey is poisoned.

Stereospecificity

[jeffb (2.718)]

“Now is catalytic hydrogenation, I forget, is that protic or aprotic?"

Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that...

Re:Making meth is even easier

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Soylent Green is Hannibal's dinner!

Re:Brings back memories

[VortexCortex]

My regards to Steve. How is gitmo treating him these days?

Re:Blue color was a plot device....

[TapeCutter]

You can turn anything you like blue by reversing the polarities and fine tuning the sub-space frequencies. I think it's fantastic that popular shows such as BB/Simpsons/Futurama/BBT are not only doing a good job of getting the science right but are also making it a feature of the show. Fiction writers have poetic license and have always researched their work to some degree, particularly the historical and geographic bits. What the author is trying to do in a drama is make the characters real and for that to happen his audience must be willing to suspend disbelief.

The ability/willingness of the audience to suspend disbelief depends on their own experience and worldview. For example the infinitely zoom-able pictures on a detectives computer, most people groan when they see it today but 20yrs ago it was an acceptable plot device because the punters simply did not know what a "pixel" was..

I'm looking for a recipe...

[Nova Express]

...of how to cook hard-to-obtain Sudafed by starting with readily available methamphetamine...