An incredible kaboom!

[baratron]

Cor. We made such a big bang in lab that the smoke alarm went off and the entire building had to be evacuated! I regard this as a success.

Unbelievably, that reaction (magnesium with copper (II) oxide) was only described as "violent". We could also have done the thermite reaction, but that was described as "extremely violent", and the college security were already pissed off with us.

I am very proud.

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Oooh. SHiny. Powdered zinc+sulphur's a good one, too.

[erik]

You go, girl!

Explosives are fun!

[pir.livejournal.com]

"Wheres the kaboom ? There's supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom !"

[redbird]

Loud cheers!

[mhw.livejournal.com]

The Thermite reaction isn't actually too violent if you do it properly. What tends to set things kabooming is if the reactants and crucible are at all moist. Give them a day or two over anhydrous calcium chloride and things are much calmer, particularly if you bury everything under a few inches of sand.

[wandra.livejournal.com]

Yay! *grin*

[jinian.livejournal.com]

hurrah!

[lindsical.livejournal.com]

I dont think burning down a school would be a good thing to do H-L :)

[esbat.livejournal.com]

Growing up in Northern Ireland it was actually quite hard to get hold of anything explosive for some spurious reason or other. ;) Actually, we did get to make 2,4 - dinitrophenylhydrazine which i believe is quite explosive when it dries out. I'm surprised some idiot didn't try to find out; there were plenty of those in my chemistry class.

[vampwillow]

At my school, the final lesson of every term was 'explosions day' where we just blew things up. Helped that we had a fireworks factory nearby who kept us well supplied, plus two very mad chem teachers who had blown bits of themselves off/up over the years.

A couple of times us sixth-formers got carried away and caused the evacuation of the whole science block ;->

!!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Even I'm shocked by that!

Don't think it would be allowed anymore... (unfortunately)

Re: !!

[vampwillow]

yeah ... sortof annoys me now that kids don't seem to be able to get to do the fun, practical stuff that people of my age used to do in chemistry and physics lessons (hell, we didn't even have goggles!).

2:4 dichlorobromoethylene, I think, was the most 'interesting' experience we had ... had to evacuate half the upper school when it went a bit too well!

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Well, That's what science teachers are meant to do, but have you set fire to the roof yet.