Where’ve you been? Holidays? Harrumph. You young whipper-snappers, why, you don’t know you’re born. In my day, we had to watch endless repeats of Monty Python and the Goodies and like it.
Anyway.
Just over a month ago I related a story about a demonstration of the thermite reaction. You’ll remember, if you care to take your pencil out of your nose, Gee, and pay attention, that a cove by the name of Hogg assisted in this demonstration, very nearly burning down the chemistry lab in the process. Oh do put it away, Rohn. Unless you’ve brought enough for everyone? Didn’t think so.
So, this Hogg character. Not exactly the brightest cookie in the toolshed, but keen. Very keen. Sort of chap who would do something stupidly brave and afterwards wonder what all the fuss was about and what all the ambulances were for. And one of the things about science is that actually, if you’ve got enthusiasm you don’t necessarily have to be all that bright, as long as your creative energies are suitably steered.
Leastways, that’s the charitable explanation for Hogg finding himself in possession of one of the very expensive glass syringes one day in the chemistry lesson, whereas those of us who were more or less guaranteed ‘A’s had to make do with the old, cheap and (critically) unbreakable plastic ones.
That fateful day, we were generating hydrogen by some method which probably involved acid; collecting the gas and measuring how much was produced. Thence—knowing how much stuff we’d started with—we were to quantify the reaction. Or something equally useful. It was another country, and besides, the wench is dead and a long time ago.
So we all had reaction apparatus, a length of tubing, and a graduated syringe with which to collect and measure hydrogen gas. Some of us, as I say, had these plastic, crappy things and others, in what seemed to be gross unfairness, the expensive and accurate glass jobbies. After a certain amount of grumbling, we got down to business—Hogg, naturally, happy as a pig in shit.
Events proceeded according to the laws of nature: gas was produced, measured, and calculations begun.
Well, that’s what should have happened.
Hydrogen gas indeed was produced, and as most of us were peering at the faded black lines on plastic syringes and trying to figure out exactly what ‘e.t2’ meant in cubic centimetres, there was an almighty BANG and a piece of glass went whizzing past my left ear. I turned on the spot, afraid that sudden movement might cause something to fall off. At the other end of the classroom, like a latter day Ozymandias, stood Spencer Hogg: hand outstretched, a smouldering splint in one hand and nothing but whispy smoke in the other.
The boy, miraculously, appeared unharmed.
When we eventually managed to prise Mr Woods from his hiding place in the stock cupboard, we discovered what had happened.
Hogg, all keenness and light, with glass syringe in hand (did I mention how expensive they were?), was desperate to repay the trust placed in him, and, in short, had tried to impress Mr Woods with his extensive knowledge of chemistry. After recording 7.3197 cm 3 precisely , he determined to prove that the gas evolved was indeed hydrogen. So he lit a bunsen, removed the plunger from the syringe, (mixy-mixy, little FAE) and plunged a lit splint into the open end of the syringe barrel, no doubt expecting a genteel ‘pop’.
You can’t blame a kid for trying, I guess.
How delightful; from your wiki link…
Sounds like someone you know, hmm?
Fabulous. You seem to be challenging the schoolday explosive reminiscences of Scaryduck. Or maybe it’s simply that you’re both products of the same school system. 😉
like a latter day Ozymandias – heh. Well done.
Now there’s a thought. Not beyond the realms of possibility.
Thanks for noticing the classical reference. I wondered if any of the barbarians here would get it.
Brings back memories…I was (still am?) one of those geeky kids who had a home chemistry lab. Zinc granules + HCl + match = loudest bang ever produced.
Oh. Now there’s another rant (and the subject of another ‘Last retort’, actually: I should re-purpose it).
But I liked Monty Python and the Goodies.
That’s ‘cos you’re an old fart, Nathaniel.
Actually, I like them too. But we didn’t have a colour TV until 1983.
Has anyone noticed that I’m the only female to comment?
Hmmm.
And …
sorry. That’s a little bit too meta for me at this time of morning.
“we didn’t have a colour TV until 1983”
That’s the same year we got ours. I was 5, and until then I had never seen Sesame Street in colour. It blew my mind. Uphill, both ways, in the snow, etc.
The most exciting thing that ever happened in our high school chemistry class was when the math teacher burst in with a girl who had managed to get TippEx/WiteOut in her eye during his class, and one of the other students there had the presence of mind to direct them to the eye-washing station in the chem lab.
This says more about the things that happened in math class, though.
I can see it now.
‘Differentiate this, thou irrational tangent!’
Hm, I think that was probably close to when we got our first colour TV too… might have been a bit earlier, but not much.
Magnesium flakes + blowtorch. Don’t stare right at it.
that’s along the lines of ‘do not look into laser with remaining eye’.
Oh, my grandparents had a colour TV well before then—from the mid-70s, maybe?—and it was always a treat to visit them and watch something fatuous of a Saturday night.
Making own entertainment, &c.
¿Did I mention how expensive they were?
No, ¿Which is their market price of glass syringe?
Maybe this is the problem, a market problem.