Gordon Moore on explosives, and semiconductors

[Dirk Bruere at Neopax]

I'll never forget the time in about 9th grade chem class, where they
were teaching us how to identify a bottle of a gas with a burning wood
splint. Nitrogen puts it out, oxygen makes it flare up and burn white-
hot, and hydrogen quietly burns with an almost invisible pale blue
flame (although I've heard that a hydrogen flame in air makes UV).
We made the H2 and O2 by electrolysis, which was way cool, and
lessee - heated up some potassium permanganate with manganese
dioxide catalyst, and made oxygen, and made hydrogen with zinc
and HCl solution. Anyway, one day, when we came into class, the teacher
had one of those collection bottles, and got one of the kids to volunteer
to come up to the front of the class and put the burning splint to the
mouth of the bottle, just as he took off its lid.

It had hydrogen and oxygen in it. BOOM! The poor gal almost shat.
The windows rattled, and there were 29 secondary "plop"s when all
of the kids' butts landed back in their chairs. I swear, I saw
a flame four feet long, albeit almost instantaneously. I can't
imagine "them" letting anything like that happen again - in fact,
even at the time, I thought it was pretty stupid to make an
explosion like that in a glass bottle that you're holding in
your hand. =:-O

Oh, yeah, that's the same class where I flashed some CS2. That
was very weird - for a few seconds, the whole world was blue
flame, and then, of course, I found myself breathing SO2.

Ah, those were the good old days!

I have seen a similar demo done with C2H2 and O2.
The glass bottle was put in an open copper sheath, with a chair placed over it
and blast screen all around it.

The explosion was huge.
The blast screens were knocked over, the chair split in half and the glass
bottle reduced to powder.

--
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

 

[Rich, Under the Affluence]

Bones are only fully formed around the age of 30.
However, the real damage is done to those who are still growing, and that can be
as late as 20.

Apparently, my nose and feet are still growing, even at the tender age
of 56 1/2. And that thing they say, how you can tell from the size of
a guy's nose and/or feet, how big his "other parts" are, it's not true.

Sigh.
Rich

 

[keith]

Apparently, my nose and feet are still growing, even at the tender age
of 56 1/2.

Noses and ears (cartilage) continue to grow. Feet don't, they just get
squashed further.

And that thing they say, how you can tell from the size of
a guy's nose and/or feet, how big his "other parts" are, it's not true.

Come on Rich! You're being modest. You're the biggest dick in the group!