World's Most Exciting Chemistry Movies

Michael Buckbee writes: "After Dan's page got too slashdotted to view, I ran a quick search on Google for more more fun Ferroliquid sites and stumbled into a collection of movies that I wish had been taken in my chemistry classes. Almost all of the experiment descriptions lean heavily on the phrase "EXTREME DANGER" and many contain other fun words like: "Explosion", "Toxic", "Detonation", and "Diazotization"."

Mass Media

[Anonymous Coward]

>Almost all of the experiment descriptions lean heavily on
>the phrase "EXTREME DANGER" and many contain other fun
>words like: "Explosion", "Toxic", "Detonation", and "Diazotization"."

Sounds like MSNBC's coverage for the past week...

Re:Invalid Form Key

[TheMidget]

* Please choose 'ladies who cannot code' for the category!
Thank you.

I thought Anne Tomlinson had resigned, hasn't she? And the formkeys nonsense only has appeared long after her resignation.

Yeah. Cool.

[torpor]

Sorta like the 'light my fart' pictures that those morons in high school were always trying to take.

Blue flames abound, but we were always puzzled by the one guy who produced green flames. Never did figure out how.

Re:Yeah. Cool.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Sorta like the 'light my fart' pictures that those morons in high school were always trying to take."

"Blue flames abound, but we were always puzzled by the one guy who produced green flames. Never did figure out how."[emphasis added]

Interesting how "those morons" in the first sentence becomes "we" in the second. I guess that's what happens when one puts people down for doing something one does themselves. 8^}

Cheers,

Zero__Kelvin

Re:Yeah. Cool.

[khuber]

Please mod parent as humor-challenged.

-Kevin

Re:Yeah. Cool.

[torpor]

You idiot, "we" were puzzled how the green came about. "Those morons" were still doing it.

I guess "observation" isn't in your lexicon.

Re:Yeah. Cool.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Sorta like the 'light my fart' pictures that those morons in high school were always trying to take." [from earlier post, same thread)"

"I guess "observation" isn't in your lexicon."

If you mean sitting around like an idiot watching people light farts and observing them, all the while calling the people engaged in the lighting activity with you idiots for engaging in said activity, then you're right. I just don't have it in me to be that observant 8^}

And yes, I get that you weren't lighting or farting. If you believe you are any less an idiot for it, that just makes you a bigger idiot. Quit while you are only as far behind now as you are. I assure you it's only going to get *much* worse if you keep trying to defend your indefensible position.

Re:Yeah. Cool.

[Zero__Kelvin]

" Yeah, and I'll bet you all use Microsoft Software. I only watch people use MS software. I never use it because I would then be an idiot."

Nahhh ... what makes you an idiot is your blanket refusal to use Microsoft software under any conditions. Might be tough to even be sure you are avoiding all Microsoft software in fact. Ever heard of WindowsCE ? You know .. Compact Embedded. Good luck figuring out if if your typical embedded system is running Embedded Linux, vxWorks, WindowsCE, or what have you. Good try though. Don't take it so hard. You're not really an idiot unless you don't learn from your mistakes 8^}

Cheers!

Zero__Kelvin

Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion

[Spootnik]

Here's a short depiction of what I'm trying to accomplish. If you've got any ideas - pass them my way...I've got a balloon of ferrofluid suspended inside a tube filled with the water - attached to the walls. Outside the tube I have a configuration of solenoids, hooked up to deliver a magnetic field in sequence starting at one end of the tube - and stepping to the other end. The effect should expand the balloon to the walls of the tube, and the stepping of this bubble down the tube should propell the water... Hopefully in a smooth fashion. I've got everything working except the sequencing drivers for the solenoids, so it's looking good so far.

I never got around to trying to build an MHD fountain that would shoot salt water up in the air past a large magnet and a pair of electrodes. Has anyone tried this kind of a project?

KISS

[BillyGoatThree]

Why use a ferrofluid for this? Why not just a regular piston made of iron with a rubber ring to keep the seal?

For that matter, why involve magnetism at all? Why not a simple mechanical piston? That eliminates the solenoid problem.

Re:Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion

[AnotherBrian]

I like your idea. If I understand it correctly, you want to make a standard positive displacement pump, just replacing the piston with a ferrofluid ball. Or, you want to squeeze the ballon at the end of the stroke and have it move back down the pipe to re-expand and push more water forward. Either way I can see how this could work. BTW I remember a picture of an anchant water lifting device that used a chain with ballons attached evenly along it's length. Then it was threaded through sever vertical lengths of bamboo, then pulled over a wheel cut with recesses at appropriate places(like a common chain pulley of today). Someone then turned the wheel at the top and the ballons where polled up the tubes and trapped a quantify of water above them. Pardon my sidetrack.

On the issue of controlling the solenoids, I would suggest you use logic gates run by a digital watch clock signal. Because most circuits allow you to set the time by sending the raw clock signal past the dividers (that slow it down) and straight into the counters. This has the effect of speeding up the clock and the digits change very fast.

(Remember when McGuyver was locked into a hazederous waste incinerator and the hot wast was about to pour into the chamber and the door had a time lock on it. He opened the back of the timer (not that it would have been accessible from the inside of the door) and shorted out the circuit (specific the divider circuit) and the timer started to run at like 1000 seconds per second. The door opened early and he an his female companions got out before the hazardous green sludge started to pore in. They also remembered to grab the folder containing the secret documents hidden behind a pipe to lure him inside the chamber). {rant}I am SOOOOOOO pissed that it was canceled. I learned so much clool stuff from that show.{/rant}

Take a look at this article [howstuffworks.com], and search around for "half adders" and "full adders". Those are the kind of circuits you will be dealing with. Also, you could use a chain of flip-flops [howstuffworks.com] and capacitors attached to the coils to carry the signal down the length of the pipe.

I really like your idea and if you need additional advice or ideas, e-mail me. I'm not an expert on magnets or electronics, just a hobbiest I guess. :)

Re:Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion

[The Wicked Armadillo]

Um, the sequencing circuts can be built for under $40 USD with parts at Radio $hack. Use a 555 timer (aproxamatly $15 to build a working circut), and use a decade sequencer(?), clock the sequencer off of the 555 timer. This will provide 10 VCC+ level outs for the magnets. This will work for a constant step rate, if you need to have a decreasing length of time between pulses you can use a resistor network with comparators on the cap from the 555 timer, which will provide a constant ramp to feed the comparators, thus providing a repeatable cycle of pulses, with a diffrent calculatable time between induvidual pulses in the cycle.

The Wicked Armadillo -- I cannot spell to save my life.

Building an MHD fountain.

[Christopher Thomas]

I never got around to trying to build an MHD fountain that would shoot salt water up in the air past a large magnet and a pair of electrodes. Has anyone tried this kind of a project?

I tried building a railgun once, which worked on exactly the same principles (run current through a metal projectile perpendicular to a magnetic field).

My projectile was a shred of tinfoil. It twitched, but didn't move. Then I did the calculations to find out exactly how much current I'd need for a decent amount of force on the projectile.

Even with a very strong magnetic field (think "one tesla"), you're going to need a silly amount of current to apply enough force to give a nice fountain effect (think "hundreds of amps"). This will heat your water up quite a bit, and give you quite a lot of hydrogen and chlorine gas as a byproduct if you're using saltwater.

It should still be do-able; I'm just warning you that it won't be as easy as you might hope :).

Use a nitrate as the electrolyte and you'll avoid the chlorine gas problem (you should get hydrogen and oxygen).

Re:Building an MHD fountain.

[TotallyBored]

"My projectile was a shred of tinfoil"

Tinfoil is a pretty poor choice for a projectile. Have you everpicked up a piece of tinfoil w/ a magnet? That's your problem.

Re:Building an MHD fountain.

[Christopher Thomas]

Tinfoil is a pretty poor choice for a projectile. Have you everpicked up a piece of tinfoil w/ a magnet? That's your problem.

Open an introductory physics text and look up the "motor principle". The projectile doesn't have to be magnetic - it has to be conducting.

Current flowing through a wire (or other conductor) in a magnetic field produces a force on the wire proportional to the magnetic field strength and the electric current, in a direction perpendicular to both.

That's why you can build a fountain with this effect in the first place (water certainly isn't magnetic).

The force is also proportional to the length of the wire, which gives interesting scaling effects but isn't direcly relevant.

Re:Building an MHD fountain.

[budgenator]

The text book answer is to charge up a realy big capacitor, you can get 1 Farad caps now for car stereos. Once its chargege up the Cap is imploded by an explosive charge to give it a realy big boast and when its compressed enough you just throw the switch. The water shoots up pretty good.
The hydrogen/chlorine gas quickly recombines to HydroChloric acid giving a little more propulsion also. BTW the SWAT team ususaly arrives before you get to do it again!
Seriously see Tom Clancy's The Hunt For Red October the sub used magnetoHydrodynamic propulsion

Re:Building an MHD fountain.

[Christopher Thomas]

The text book answer is to charge up a realy big capacitor, you can get 1 Farad caps now for car stereos. Once its chargege up the Cap is imploded by an explosive charge to give it a realy big boast and when its compressed enough you just throw the switch. The water shoots up pretty good.

It sounds like you're thinking of the standard EMP current spike generator - that's made by crushing an inductor, not a capacitor. Someone posted a good description of the physics involved a while back, but I'm afraid I don't have the link handy.

[You run a starting current through the inductor, then rig explosives to create a travelling short that moves along the inductor decreasing its inductance. As inductance decreases, current increases to keep the stored energy constant.]

Re:Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion

[leifb]

I did something like this in high school.
Try looking into the sequencing circuitry for a magnetic railgun. There's cheap silicon that can handle this kind of problem pretty easily.

Building railguns.

[Christopher Thomas]

Dude, F=BLI. There's no squaring at work here. You'll need 100's, if not K and M amps to do anything resembling a railgun.
But, P=I^2R. Your Joule heating will be considerable. You'll need some good engineering so that your toy won't disintegrate itself.
And V=LdI/dT. You'll need city bus size capacitors and hydrogen thyratrons to switch massive currents quickly. For railguns we're talking mega-amps in 20 nanoseconds.

Depends on what you call a "railgun".

If you're trying to make a small water fountain, you can get away with a newton of force or less. You'd also be working in continuous mode, which means a capacitor bank isn't needed (just a DC or approximately DC power supply that can provide the needed current).

One-tesla magnets are easy to buy or build - about one tesla is the saturation point of most ferromagnetic materials, so a chunk of iron will turn a 0.01-T or 0.001-T solenoid into a 1T magnet in short order (depending on the permeability of garden-variety scrap iron).

Similarly, high-strength permanent magnets will be in the Tesla range (probably more like half a tesla, but still strong enough for our purposes).

At one tesla, for a force of 1N, and assuming a water tube 1 cm wide, a current of 100 amps is adequate. A step-down transformer, a bridge rectifier, and a wall plug, and you're there.

For a proof-of-concept tabletop railgun, you can similarly relax constraints. If I'm trying to fling, say, a 10g segment of copper plumbing pipe across a room, I don't need a capacitor bank - I need a marine battery. If I can fire the projectile at 10m/s, that gives me a good 5m or so before it hits the floor from tabletop height (10m if I fire it at an angle instead of level); more than enough for a party trick. At that low a speed, it's in the railgun for tens of milliseconds or longer - I don't need nanosecond discharge circuitry. My hypothetical 10g projectile would have a kinetic energy of about half a joule, which means that if my railgun is about a foot and a half long, I again need only 1N of force. A marine battery can supply the required 100 amps of current without any problems at all (in fact, I'd want to drop a resistor in series with it to make sure it doesn't supply much more than that when I short the railgun across it).

Preventing the slug from spot-welding itself to the rails is left as an exercise for the reader :).

In summary, while I'd need heftier electronics to build a military-grade weapon, tabletop railguns and similar motor-principle conversation pieces aren't that hard to build.

[Aside: I'd actually build a coilgun instead of a railgun if I wanted a military-grade weapon. Much, much easier to build at high power than an ultra-high-current railgun (it's just a series of high-power RF or IF coils repelling the slug with induced currents). Even here, millisecond-level timing is perfectly adequate.]

Re:Building railguns.

[sbeitzel]

Back in 1991 or so, when they were having the groundbreaking ceremony for the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Survival Research Labs (SRL) performed a piece. One of the devices they used was a railgun which shot rebar. I remember going to the event and then later going to a Q & A session with Mark Pauline. His comment on the railgun was something like, "...we built this railgun that fired rebar, but solid rebar is pretty boring. So we fixed it up with induction coils to melt the iron, so now we've got a railgun that fires liquid iron." It was aimed against a high concrete wall, and the molten iron made pretty showers of orange sparks that caught some of the other stuff on fire (as one might expect at an SRL show). It was awesome.

Re:Building railguns.

[p3d0]

current of 100 amps is adequate. A step-down transformer, a bridge rectifier, and a wall plug, and you're there.

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't passing 100 amps through a bridge rectifier going to be a problem? Do they make diodes with this kind of current capacity?

Re:Building railguns.

[Christopher Thomas]

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't passing 100 amps through a bridge rectifier going to be a problem? Do they make diodes with this kind of current capacity?

Sure they do. You're at U of T; go down to Queen and Spadina and head east to SupremeTronic :). That's where I got the one I used for an electrolysis rig a while back.

The one I bought might only have been rated to 30 amps, but the straightforward solution is to just run three or four in parallel with a big aluminum bar bolted across the cases to keep them at the same temperature (otherwise thermal runaway will cause the hottest one to fail, then the next, and so on).

Nitrogen Triiodide

[spiro_killglance]

NI3

Well You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Na Cl

Need a light, Salted

Re:fuck apple. fuck sorenson.

[TheMidget]

Linux can play all the windows media formats...

That's interesting. What application do you need for that?

mplayer

[spauldo]

mplayer will do it.

avifile might, dunno, never used it.

They both use the windoze codecs, and since media player has their codes installed through the standard windoze multimedia properties (they're all separate .dll files) they're relatively easy to get to use on linux (I say relatively easy as in respect to say, getting the sorenson codec out of the quicktime binary or the realplayer one out of realplayer). I use mplayer 'cause it plays mpeg and avi files, where last I checked (some time ago) avifile only plays avi's.

mplayer's damn good, but it's not gui - you skip through the movie using arrow keys and pgup/pgdn. Once you get used to it, you'll still wish for a slider, but you'll wish that the programs that had sliders also supported the keyboard. I hope when they do finish they gui (they're workin' on it) they keep the keyboard controls.

I've only found a couple of files that mplayer won't play correctly - and with those files _nothing_ would play them correctly. I collect a lot of movies (3 stooges episodes, simpsons, full-length movies, etc.) so I've tested it out pretty well.

Re:mplayer

[spauldo]

You can't play a sorenson-encoded quicktime video using software available for linux. I dunno, maybe wine will run quicktime. I don't watch quicktime video so I don't care.

I wasn't answering that question. I was answering the question about being able to play windows media formats under linux. I specifically answered that question and provided my view on how the software performed. Try to pay attention next time.

damn quicktime

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that slashdot take a stand and not post links to web-pages that can't be viewed using free software. By posting this link and saying ``check this out'' you're encouraging people to use software that doesn't even work with Linux.

I thought slashdot was the one website that understood my computer's needs.

QT is Free

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Quicktime installed on all 6 of my machines and I didn't pay a dime. Quicktime is FREE SOFTWARE.

Re:QT is *not* Free

[flonker]

QT is free as in beer [apple.com]. It is not free as in speech. The original AC has a valid point. There are versions of QT that aren't free [apple.com].

Re:QT is Free

[TheMidget]

I have Quicktime installed on all 6 of my machines and I didn't pay a dime. Quicktime is FREE SOFTWARE.

Yes, true, but the problem is the Codecs. These chemistry movies are encoded using the Sorensen Codec, which it unfortunately not supported by the free quicktime versions.

Re:QT is Free

[Knobby]

These chemistry movies are encoded using the Sorensen Codec, which it unfortunately not supported by the free quicktime versions.

WRONG!!

The Quicktime API allows for the decoding of all formats supported regardless of whether you're using the free client or the registered Pro version. The restrictions that Apple places on their software falls into the authoring catagory. You can watch anything, but until you register, you can not encode your DV stream, or mpeg clip as a Sorensen movie.

Re:QT is Free

[TheMidget]

The Quicktime API allows for the decoding of all formats supported regardless of whether you're using the free client of the registered Pro version

That's true, the API allows to use any Codec you can get. But that catch is: where do you download the more exotic codec's from? A generic player is no good, if the plugins are simply not available...

Re:QT is Free

[Knobby]

Let me guess. You're sitting in front of a Linux box and have never used quicktime.. Right?

The Quicktime Player you download from Apple contains ALL the codecs they support (even the exotic ones like Sorensen 3).. if you have a Windows or Mac around download a copy of Quicktime 5, click the later button (you haven't registered anything), and try to take a look at any of the movie trailers [apple.com] on Apple's page. If you can watch them you're using the decoding portion of the Sorensen CODEC..

Re:QT is Free

[leeward]

Or if you are using Linux, then you can go to Codeweavers [codeweavers.com] and get the Crossover Plugin (which comes with Quicktime 5). Not free, but it is cheap. It works great with Linux and Netscape for me on the Apple movie trailers; the chemistry movies appear to be /.ed.

Re:QT is Free

[Chris Tucker]

Well, for all those folks moaning and pissing about how the evil Sorensen encoded QT movies will not play unless you register with Apple and sell them your soul...

The movies play just fine on my free, unregistered version of QT 4. something or other.

I'm beginning to think we need a new moderation descriptor for the pulldown menu:

"Linux Bigot"

Re:QT is Free

[ecampbel]

QuickTime Player is the only thing limited in the free version. Third party software can encode DV streams and create Sorensen movies with the free version of QT. Both versions ship with identical codecs that aren't encumbered in any way.

Then do something about it

[AnotherBrian]

Reverse engenere the codec and write your own player for linux. Didn't some kid do something like this so he could watch DVDs on his linux box?

I know I may be talking out of my ass on this becaues I have no idea how to reverse engenere anything right now and there could be an issue with the DMCA. But, one can learn how to do this and FUCK the DMCA.

Re:Then do something about it

[spauldo]

What he did was easy compared to reverse engineering a codec (CSS isn't a codec - it's a weak encryption system). Codecs are some of the hardest things to reverse engineer, especially when the specs aren't published. Sorenson video isn't a separate codec like the windoze codecs are - it's mixed in with a bunch of other stuff in the quicktime binary - so just getting the .dll file to work with linux won't work.

Re:damn quicktime

[SlamMan]

Since SlashDot is still "News for nerd, stuff that matters" supposedly, this falls into that category. They (we) aren't going to ignoring information just because it doesn't fall into our lovely little paradigm on how softerware should be free, yada yada yada. Not every "nerd" or person who cares about technical stuf is running linux. This isn't a linux specific site to begin with. I'm posting this off my wireless TiBook, whichre certainly falls under the nerd category.

Re:damn quicktime

[dattaway]

I suppose the person who thought this was flamebait wouldn't mind providing us with an mpeg version?

I would like to see the movie or perhaps even a screenshot.

Re:damn quicktime

[Chris Tucker]

So, some gutless AC whines:

"I suggest that slashdot take a stand and not post links to web-pages that can't be viewed using free software. By posting this link and saying ``check this out'' you're encouraging people to use software that doesn't even work with Linux.

I thought slashdot was the one website that understood my computer's needs. "

Gawdamighty! It's not like it was some damn RealPlayer format or WMP.

You know, not everyone uses Linux. Not everyone WANTS to use Linux. Not everyone CAN use Linux.

If you are SO OFFENDED by QuickTime, then I suggest that you sit down and write an RMS-Approved & Endorsed version of QT for Linux.

Re:damn quicktime

[SnowZero]

If you are SO OFFENDED by QuickTime, then I suggest that you sit down and write an RMS-Approved & Endorsed version of QT for Linux.

We would, except that it would be illegal, thanks to the wonderful corporate tool of software patents. There already are QuickTime stream decoders, but they aren't allowed to leagally reverse engineer and distribute the patented-protected Sorensen codec so that they could actually view the movie content.

How would you feel if Slashdot decided tomorrow that it was only available for Linux and BSD users? What if HTTP, TCP, and IP were only available for commercial Unices and BSD, where they originated? I bet you wouldn't like that... but that's the way some corparations now want the world to head. The internet works well today because of open standards and formats. Unfortunately, several companies like the idea of milking open standards while hijacking everything else they can.

Users of open standards can make their data free to the world, and never have to worry about paying royalties to see or share their own work. Those who use closed formats are data format hostages of the companies that control the software. This is an old concept that large customized software system vendors learned long ago, which they used for milking their corporate clients. The new revolution is bringing this leverage to the single user. I don't expect you to understand this, but a few more will and many already do. It's a pity you don't see it coming...

Re:damn quicktime

[Chris Tucker]

So SnowZero sez

If you are SO OFFENDED by QuickTime, then I suggest that you sit down and write an RMS-Approved & Endorsed version of QT for Linux.

We would, except that it would be illegal, thanks to the wonderful corporate tool of software patents. There already are QuickTime stream decoders, but they aren't allowed to leagally reverse engineer and distribute the patented-protected Sorensen codec so that they could actually view the movie content.

Oh, so you're saying that it's not technologically impossible to do it.

So write the frigging thing, find a server in Russia (for example) and distribute it anonymously.

There, you've foiled the big bad hypercorps. Hiro Protagonist would be SO proud of you.

How would you feel if Slashdot decided tomorrow that it was only available for Linux and BSD users?

No skin off my nose, but all the folks who bitch about Katz would surely be heartbroken.

What if HTTP, TCP, and IP were only available for commercial Unices and BSD, where they originated? I bet you wouldn't like that... but that's the way some corparations now want the world to head. The internet works well today because of open standards and formats. Unfortunately, several companies like the idea of milking open standards while hijacking everything else they can.

DAMN the hypercorps! Damn them! Someone should write a letter. Oh, wait. That's not cyber, like EMAIL. And it uses a closed source, proprietary transportation system. Plus, you would actually have to handle PAPER. How last millennium is THAT? The only reason DMCA and such like is that all the lazy sods who moan and piss about such things DON'T GET INVOLVED with the fiddling small details of participatory democracy. Sending the odd check to EFF does not count as participating in democracy.

Users of open standards can make their data free to the world, and never have to worry about paying royalties to see or share their own work. Those who use closed formats are data format hostages of the companies that control the software.

As I said, ther eare people who don't use Linux or can't use Linux. So all the flipping open source software in the world is useless to them.

So for most people, closed source formats are what they use. And you know, no matter how much RMS hops up and down, closed/proprietary formats are not evil.

This is an old concept that large customized software system vendors learned long ago, which they used for milking their corporate clients. The new revolution is bringing this leverage to the single user. I don't expect you to understand this, but a few more will and many already do. It's a pity you don't see it coming...

Oh, THANK YOU for your condescending lecture! I have seen the light! I am even now wiping all the evil closed source Apple software from my Macintosh, and once that's done, I'm gonna pull out the system ROM and BREAK IT IN TWO! That'll show that greedy bastard Jobs.

Fun with microwave energy!

[John Pfeiffer]

I like the page on dan's site (linked to from dan's site?) that has movies of all sorts of interesting things getting fragged in the microwave... And I thought all it was good for was ramen noodles and Windoze/AOL CDs... ^_^

I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[TalShiar00]

Our HS chem teacher was nice/crazy enough to allow us to do any experiment we wanted as long as it wasnt too dangerous. So I ended up doing the Nitrogen Triiodide experiment. I think I made too much cause we went without using one of the fume hoods for a month. Everyone was too scared to go near the filterpapers because they would spontaneously react. It was fun watching the lower divistion classes jump when some would spark drung a lecture.

Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[XarsonX]

nitrogen triiodide isnt as dangorous when it is kept wet. i was thinking about making some but after watching movie...i think not

Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[Krokus]

How do they get the powder onto the filter paper (i.e., set up the experiment) without detonating the stuff?

Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[TalShiar00]

As you may be able to tell from the other posts it remains harmless intill dry. Thats why filter paper is used. After the water drips out through the filter paper it becomes volitile to: a feather, air currents, glass rod, sophomore chem student's fingers ;)

aka M.I.T. flypaper

[dpilot]

at least that's what the high school chemistry teacher told us. Given the jar of metallic iodine that wasn't carefully controlled, we made a TON of the stuff, though obviously in very small batches. At one point, someone rolled a glass rod down the chem lab bench, with small snapping sounds the whole way. The chem lab also overlooked the stadium, and was used for spotting and shooting game films. Someone noticed the odd snapping sounds when walking across the floor.

That looked like an 'incautious' amount of the stuff piled on those filter papers.

Incidentally, as long as the stuff is wet, you can do anything you want with it. It doesn't get touchy until dry.

For further reading, R.A.Heinlein used the stuff in "Farnham's Freehold".

Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[TalShiar00]

A private high school where the chem teacher had limited knowledge. About a quarter through the year of AP Chem she ran out of experience and we were teaching our selves. We were the upper division chem class but were often still doing experiments while she was lecturing to the lower division class.

Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction

[morie]

when I was a chem student I did this one as well. We worked very securely, but nothing happened

Then one of the lecturers walked in, took the Iodide, the ammonia and just poored some together. mixed well, dryed using aceton and threw some in water, so stable) on the floor. Detonation was done by tapping it with a _long_ pole

At least this taught me that chemistry is all about feeling, not just measuring out components. One of the most valuable and fun lessons of my study.

More appropriate topic:

[Mik!tAAt]

How about "World's Most Slashdotted Chemistry Movies" ?

Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referrer

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be quite easy to use mod_rewrite in apache to set it up to respond to all requests where the referer contains "slashdot.org" with a '404 slashdotted' response. Perhaps such a configuration it should come as part of the default apache config ;).

Re:Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referr

[TheMidget]

Please stop posting these instruction, or else slashdot will become completely useless (well, until people learn to simply copy-paste the offending URLs into a new browser window rather than clicking on the link).

Or is this what you want?

Re:Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referr

[SlamMan]

It'd be more useful to just have slashdot mirror all the pages we link to.

Re:Invalid form key: nL4l7BanYg !

[Seehund]

Offtopic? Damn ignorant moderator who wouldn't recognise the amino acid sequence of adult human hemoglobin if it jumped up and bit him in the ass.

Jackass for Chemistry Nerds

[WickywiK]

MTV Press Release: Following in the footsteps of the controversial show "Jackass," MTV proudly presents a similar show for those of the chemical persuasion: "Jackass Chemistry." Tune in each week to see your favorite nerds mix things that should not be mixed together. Watch the halarious explosions and poisonous gas clouds that follow! For mature audiences only. WIK

getting them on CD

[trb]

These pages are currently /.'ed, but they sell 5 CD-ROMs of these videos for $60 each [wisc.edu] to individuals in the USA, more for multi-user and non-USA.

More Quicktime

[Anonymous Coward]

People bend over so readily to proprietary stuff that by the time it becomes mandetory by law, most people won't even notice.

No way am I gonna "Register" with Apple to view
web content. They can kiss my ass.

Re:More Quicktime

[TheMidget]

No way am I gonna "Register" with Apple to view web content.

And in this case, this won't help anyways: those movies are encoded using the proprietary Sorensen codec anyways, so your newly downloaded quicktime will just tell you "not supported..."

Re:More Quicktime

[greenrd]

What are you talking about? I use Crossover:

1) It runs on Linux
2) No registration
3) Never seen any "not supported" messages

Ahh you poor souls

[nizo]

I had an excellent chemistry teacher back in high school! He used to create huge gas filled bubbles in class and light em up, toss chunks of sodium and potassium into water, etc etc. I don't know how much chemistry I actually *learned* in class, but he certainly knew how to get our attention!

Article should have said...

[sunhou]

"After Dan's page got too slashdotted to view, I ran a quick search on Google for Slashdot's next victim..."

Re:Article should have said...

[Autumnmist]

Maybe someone should give postees advanced warning...something like, watch out, you're going down in: 5...4...3...2...1... Oops sorry.

Making chemestry fun.

[Picass0]

Maybe more people would study chemesty if they followed the example of Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics. [britneyspears.ac]

QuickTime! :-(

[BroadbandBradley]

You must have QuickTime 4 or later to play these movies. If you do not have QuickTime, you can download a free copy from Apple Computer.

HN3

[PHAEDRU5]

I had a professor who used to make trays of this stuff and then film flies blowing up on touchdown.

I think he'd sniffed a bit too much benzene over the years.

Flashback!

[Reality Master 101]

When I saw the words "chemistry movie", the phrase "THIS IS A CHEM-STUDY FILM!!!" immediately ran through my head from high school. That was the first line of the world's most boring science videos, which I'm pretty sure were old when I was in high school (78-82).

That one that sticks out in my mind that was the most unintentionally hilarious teaching movie I've ever seen was this one that had this incredibly old guy. He seemed to move in slow motion, and as he slooowly spoke, he would insert these looooong pauses with a big "uh" in the middle. Like, "here we have our,,,,,,,,,, uh,,,,,,,,,, apparatus to perform the experiment". Then he would use these bad measuring devices that he would (I'm not making this up) tap on to make the needle move, until the right result came up. The class was rolling on the floor during this movie. It was so bad.

Thinking back on them now, I'm wondering if they were really as boring as I remember (although that one above was clearly baaaaad), or if I just remember them through the lens of a punk teenager. :)

Are chem-study films still around? I would imagine they must have been remade by now. I'm pretty sure the ones I watched were made in the 60s.

another video

[coreyb]

This reminds me of a movie I saw in chemistry back when I was high school. Apperently, this teacher was cleaning out the supply room at his school and found some big (on the order of a kilogram) chunks of sodium and potassium metal. He took them out to an abandonded mine with a lake-size puddle that needed its pH to be more balanced, and tossed in the metals. The reactions lasted several minutes. It was pretty cheesily narrated - including a part where the mad scientist in charge pointed out that even the cameraman was wearing safety glasses. The videotape was pretty grainy. It makes me think it got passed around from chemistry teacher to chemistry teacher.

if you REALLY want to get blinded by science...

[smirkleton]

Don't forget white phosphorus [wisc.edu]. It spontaneously combusts at room temperature, like a Spinal Tap drummer.

Re:if you REALLY want to get blinded by science...

[Krokus]

Why do they always throw acid in the face of the villian in those horror movies when there are so many other interesting things to use? I suppose the necessary exposition would kind of bog down the story a bit. Unless it was a documentary or something. :-)

More o' the same

[lisle]

Speaking of /.'ed...

Learning through explosives

[Randy Rathbun]

In reading some of the comments here, I get the disturbing feeling that what most of us learned in science classes was "How to blow stuff up real good!"

I never had any chemistry classes, but I don't think a day went by in our electronics class when someone did not catch something on fire. My favorite was the day we hooked a 2N2222 randomly up to 120v and watched it light up. Since it only lasted a few milliseconds we decided to liquid cool the sucker.

So, we wired one up, put heat shrink tubing around it, dunked it in a glass of water, and let the current flow. That dude lasted about 25 seconds before all the smoke was let out.

But nothing beats the day I was at my friend Tom's. We were in his lab in his basement and were just goofing around with something on an o-scope. He was rummaging around in the closet for something and ran across some great big 1000V capacitors that came out of some HV power supply. These things were huge. Tom slapped it down on the desk, hooked it up to a power supply, and proceeded to charge it up. I was talking to someone on Tom's 2m ham rig and was watching out of the corner of my eye as he started to throw stuff across the terminals. An aluminum can got two big holes blown in it. a paperclip blew in half. Needless to say what he was doing was causing loads of interferance and I could only get a few words of what I was listening to. I asked the other station to repeat.

Then the interferance really started - though it was not due to the spark gap transmitter that was just a few feet away. It was because of me laughing. Tom got the idea to drop a piece of aluminum foil across the cap and it stuck to the terminals. He reached down to pull the tin foil off and burned his hand, yelled "damn! that's hot!" then picked up the cap and tossed it back in the closet. I was laughing so hard I had to sign off cause I could not talk for about 5 minutes.

How I wish that had been a Kodak Moment.

Re:Learning through explosives

[leeward]

On that thread, here are some more entertaining stories [freeyellow.com] (warning, pop ups) involving amateurs, explosives, and unintended consequences.

Amazing!!!!

[chingador]

This article is kinda funny to me, being a link to a UW chemistry page. I went and checked out these videos, and this is a section of an out-of-lab exercise I had to do for my first semester Chemistry class at the UW.

Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

My vote goes to Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet [imdb.com]. It stars Edward G. Robinson [imdb.com] and Ruth Gordon [imdb.com]. (remember Harold and Maude [imdb.com]?) Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet is about the quest for a cure for syphillis. Very weird movie for 1940, and very watchable. It gives some insight into the sexual morals of old Europe. And man oh man did they have some weird chemicals for "curing" syphillis. There really was no cure until Erlich came up with his "magic bullet". This movie is a must see for all geeks.

Matter cyclotron

[SimCash]

Never did all the supporting calculations (lamer), but I designed a cyclotron-like accelerator that used magnets to accelerate a BB-sized steel ball in a circle, I figured once I got the BB running in a circle I could just increase the frequency on the magnets to slowly work up to mach 2 or so (on a two-foot circumference circle this would take four magnets running 225Hz) , then divert the BB out a door or pop open a door on the track. Even bought the solenoids that were to provide the impulses.

My main concerns were whether the BB would melt from the friction on the track (even rolling, it would experience some), and whether I could build this without wrecking something (about a year before I had nearly burned the house down while drying a sugar-based high-temperature ignitor I built to start magnesium strips on fire, so I was real safety conscious).

Anyone else ever try this at home?