World's Most Exciting Chemistry Movies 120
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 (Score:5, Funny)
>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 (Score:1)
Thank you.
I thought Anne Tomlinson had resigned, hasn't she? And the formkeys nonsense only has appeared long after her resignation.
Yeah. Cool. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Blue flames abound, but we were always puzzled by the one guy who produced green flames. Never did figure out how.
Re:Yeah. Cool. (Score:5, Funny)
"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. (Score:1)
-Kevin
Re:Yeah. Cool. (Score:2)
I guess "observation" isn't in your lexicon.
Re:Yeah. Cool. (Score:2)
"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. (Score:2)
" 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
Cheers!
Zero__Kelvin
Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
For that matter, why involve magnetism at all? Why not a simple mechanical piston? That eliminates the solenoid problem.
Re:Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion (Score:2, Informative)
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 (Score:1)
The Wicked Armadillo -- I cannot spell to save my life.
Building an MHD fountain. (Score:3, Interesting)
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. (Score:1)
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. (Score:2, Informative)
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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
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. (Score:3, Informative)
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. (Score:2)
Re:Building railguns. (Score:1)
Re:Building railguns. (Score:2)
Sure they do. You're at U of T; go down to Queen and Spadina and head east to SupremeTronic
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Well You could have knocked me down with a feather.
Na Cl
Need a light, Salted
Re:fuck apple. fuck sorenson. (Score:1)
That's interesting. What application do you need for that?
mplayer (Score:1)
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
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 (Score:1)
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 (Score:1, Flamebait)
I thought slashdot was the one website that understood my computer's needs.
QT is Free (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:QT is *not* Free (Score:1)
Re:QT is Free (Score:1)
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 (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
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 (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
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 (Score:1)
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 (Score:2)
Then do something about it (Score:1)
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 (Score:1)
Re:damn quicktime (Score:1)
Re:damn quicktime (Score:2)
I would like to see the movie or perhaps even a screenshot.
Re:damn quicktime (Score:1)
"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 (Score:1)
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 (Score:1)
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! (Score:1)
I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction (Score:1)
Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction (Score:1)
aka M.I.T. flypaper (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
Re:I did the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction (Score:1)
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: (Score:4, Funny)
Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referrer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referr (Score:1)
Or is this what you want?
Re:Use apache to ignore requests w/slashdot referr (Score:1)
Re:Invalid form key: nL4l7BanYg ! (Score:1)
Jackass for Chemistry Nerds (Score:4, Funny)
getting them on CD (Score:2)
More Quicktime (Score:1, Insightful)
No way am I gonna "Register" with Apple to view
web content. They can kiss my ass.
Re:More Quicktime (Score:1)
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 (Score:2)
1) It runs on Linux
2) No registration
3) Never seen any "not supported" messages
Ahh you poor souls (Score:1)
Article should have said... (Score:1)
Re:Article should have said... (Score:1)
Making chemestry fun. (Score:3, Funny)
QuickTime! :-( (Score:1)
HN3 (Score:1)
I think he'd sniffed a bit too much benzene over the years.
Flashback! (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
if you REALLY want to get blinded by science... (Score:2)
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... (Score:1)
More o' the same (Score:1)
Learning through explosives (Score:3, Funny)
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 (Score:1)
On that thread, here are some more entertaining stories [freeyellow.com] (warning, pop ups) involving amateurs, explosives, and unintended consequences.
Amazing!!!! (Score:1)
Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet (Score:1, Insightful)
Matter cyclotron (Score:1)
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?