How easy life can be very great

Strypess · Post by **Strypess** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:42 am

explosions! I was the first and only unauthorized explosion at the chemistry lab at my high school... ^.^

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:46 am

Accelerants are your friend!

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:14 am

Strypess wrote:explosions! I was the first and only unauthorized explosion at the chemistry lab at my high school... ^.^

You were and explosion? Ouch! And an unotherized one at that. Thats kind of like your parents telling you you were an acident.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:25 am

ivstudios wrote:
Strypess wrote:explosions! I was the first and only unauthorized explosion at the chemistry lab at my high school... ^.^
You were and explosion? Ouch! And an unotherized one at that. Thats kind of like your parents telling you you were an acident.

They only tell you that if they don't love you. Parents who love their children lie to them.

Grabmygoblin · Post by **Grabmygoblin** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:49 am

*sheds single tear*

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:06 am

what if you're parents tell you all the painful truths but then lie to hurt your feelings. they still love me don't they?

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:19 am

orion wrote:what if you're parents tell you all the painful truths but then lie to hurt your feelings. they still love me don't they?

Ok... you weren't an accident. Or were you?

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:19 am

Wait. what if "unautherized explosion" was just a euphamism for "premature..... " ewwww, you really were an aciden!

Stinkywigfiddle · Post by **Stinkywigfiddle** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:20 pm

Weren't most of us accidents?
I had an accident once. I had to clean it up.

Isukiyomi · Post by **Isukiyomi** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:13 pm

"clean up on aisle four!"

Xmung · Post by **Xmung** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:53 pm

do they have authorised explosions in chem lab now?
my how things have changed...

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 5:10 am

Sometimes you have to make your own fun.

BrownEyedCat · Post by **BrownEyedCat** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 9:38 am

You know, I've always wanted to get my hands on some sodium and pitch it into some water.

You know, just for fun.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 9:41 am

BrownEyedCat wrote:You know, I've always wanted to get my hands on some sodium and pitch it into some water.

You know, just for fun.

Sodium... Bah.

Francium!

Or any of the other alkali metals...

BrownEyedCat · Post by **BrownEyedCat** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 9:44 am

Yeah, but if it isn't sodium, I cna't sing the sodium song while doing it!

This is all because of the movie 'Horror at Party Beach'. They defeated the monsters by lobbing sodium at them and causing them to explode.
Now THAT's classic cinema!

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 9:58 am

Wooo! I love my question!

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 10:55 am

my chemistry teacher told me an alkali horror story once:

an elementary school teacher wanted to demonstrate the alkali metal/water reaction to her students so she gets a hold of a large chunk of sodium or potassium weighing at least a significant fraction of a pound. she doesn't really know what she's doing so she gathers her kids around a plastic mini-pool and lobs in the chunk.

the thing fragments spraying several the kids with shrapnel of alkali metal...that teacher never worked again obviously.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 11:49 am

orion wrote:my chemistry teacher told me an alkali horror story once:

an elementary school teacher wanted to demonstrate the alkali metal/water reaction to her students so she gets a hold of a large chunk of sodium or potassium weighing at least a significant fraction of a pound. she doesn't really know what she's doing so she gathers her kids around a plastic mini-pool and lobs in the chunk.

the thing fragments spraying several the kids with shrapnel of alkali metal...that teacher never worked again obviously.

I have to believe this is an urban legend...

1) A pound chunk of sodium costs a hell of a lot. More than a school would reasonably pay for.

2) If she had that big a piece, it'd be in a huge frigging jar filled with oil and covered with warning labels. If she was carrying it outside the oil, it'd burn her hands due to the ambient humidity.

3) If she had the piece and she chucked it into the water, it wouldn't explode. Surface area, not mass, determines how quickly the reaction occurs. It wouldn't start from the inside either - a requirement if the chunk were to explode.

4) Alkali metals are so soft you can cut them with a knife. If it did explode, the kids would be spattered by bits of red hot molten metal, not shrapnel.

5) The metal would continue to burn due to ambient humidity and water boiling from the flesh of the children (and teacher). Wiping it off would only increase it's surface area. The children would die, or be horribly disfigured for the rest of their lives.

6) Who the hell has a baby pool filled with water at a school?!?

8)

Now that said, if it did happen, here's how it would go:

Children gather around a baby pool of water; their teacher has a one gallon jar of oil. At the bottom of the jar are several hundred small pieces of cesium. The teacher unscrews the jar and dumps the contents into the pool.

The first sign of trouble occurs in the first two seconds as the cesium hits the water and the oil begins to disperse. The water starts to bubble. The cesium pieces, well scattered, begin to melt. Unfortunately, just as the teacher realizes his mistake, it's too late.

The first flash of heat melts the pool and simultaneously vaporizes most of the water. The detonation causes third degree burns to all the children and the teacher, and the light scars their retinas, blinding them for life. Immediately thereafter the shockwave knocks the children down and spatters them with bits of the molten pool.

On the ground, some of the remaining cesium still burns and sputters, spraying the area with droplets of metal, each of which in turn begin to sputter in the humidity of the afternoon. Small fires are lit within ten to twenty feet of the blackened, charred circle that was once the pool. Children start to cry, realizing they're injured, even if the pain hasn't yet had time to reach their brain.

The real tragedy is yet to come. The initial explosion sprayed metal hundreds of feet into the air. The metal, now in millions of tiny red-hot droplets, cascades through the rising mushroom cloud of steam, and begins to fall like hell-spawned rain, igniting fires everywhere it touches, and covering the children and teachers in burning metal.

Screaming, the exposed try to wipe off the metal; that only spreads it further, causing additional heating. The water in their scarred flesh begins to boil, feeding the metal. Bones begin to crack from the heat. Some children die from burns that make their way to vital organs, or from massive blood loss and shock. Others survive, hideously scarred and deformed for life. The teacher dies - the result of his last action - leaning over the pool to see what all the fuss was about.

Man, that's a scene even War would be impressed by.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 11:53 am

rkolter wrote:Children gather around a baby pool of water; their teacher has a one gallon jar of oil. At the bottom of the jar are several hundred small pieces of cesium. The teacher unscrews the jar and dumps the contents into the pool.

The first sign of trouble occurs in the first two seconds as the cesium hits the water and the oil begins to disperse. The water starts to bubble. The cesium pieces, well scattered, begin to melt. Unfortunately, just as the teacher realizes his mistake, it's too late.

The first flash of heat melts the pool and simultaneously vaporizes most of the water. The detonation causes third degree burns to all the children and the teacher, and the light scars their retinas, blinding them for life. Immediately thereafter the shockwave knocks the children down and spatters them with bits of the molten pool.

On the ground, some of the remaining cesium still burns and sputters, spraying the area with droplets of metal, each of which in turn begin to sputter in the humidity of the afternoon. Small fires are lit within ten to twenty feet of the blackened, charred circle that was once the pool. Children start to cry, realizing they're injured, even if the pain hasn't yet had time to reach their brain.

The real tragedy is yet to come. The initial explosion sprayed metal hundreds of feet into the air. The metal, now in millions of tiny red-hot droplets, cascades through the rising mushroom cloud of steam, and begins to fall like hell-spawned rain, igniting fires everywhere it touches, and covering the children and teachers in burning metal.

Screaming, the exposed try to wipe off the metal; that only spreads it further, causing additional heating. The water in their scarred flesh begins to boil, feeding the metal. Bones begin to crack from the heat. Some children die from burns that make their way to vital organs, or from massive blood loss and shock. Others survive, hideously scarred and deformed for life. The teacher dies - the result of his last action - leaning over the pool to see what all the fuss was about.

Man, that's a scene even War would be impressed by.

You're a real "glass is half-full" type, aren't you?

Grabmygoblin · Post by **Grabmygoblin** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 12:06 pm

rkolter wrote:what REALLY would happen if you dumped a block of sodium in a kiddie pool of water

uh, you scare me sometimes. and no, that wasn't me finding far too much amusement from that story. nope.