And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Better living through chemistry! I had a chemistry kit in the early 60s, spent most of my time trying to blow stuff up, with varying degrees of success.
But zinc dust, sulfur, a little alcohol to make a paste, and eh, voila! Rocket fuel! Or potassium nitrate and sugar from the kitchen, or sulfur and charcoal. Not to mention the fun to be had with iodine crystals and a bit of ammonia. THAT recipe was even in the unabridged dictionary back in the day. Or ferrous sulfide and any acid? Makes hydrogen sulfide...which is more lethal than cyanide, but fortunately stinks horribly at even lower concentrations. I'll give you that it was fairly hard to do anything really dangerous -by 1950s standards, remember- with the small sets; the bigger ones had more scope. BUT: 'hard', not 'impossible'. Really depended on how well the local drugstore was stocked, and how willing the owner was to sell to a kid. After 1957, the answer was "usually". Really the danger factor came down to how knowledgeable the kid was...and some of us were pretty sharp. The really smart ones generally had no problems; it was the almost smart ones that got burned.
Our local Rexall sold us large bottles of potassium nitrate, Sulphur was very easy to come by as well as charcoal from dad's stash. Every kid knew that recipe. Lost some fingerprints learning how to handling various acids compounds. Lighter fluid cannons...all great fun.
The chemistry sets were real, but that pic sure looks like a photoshop. The condenser is connected backwards AND missing a water line; ground glass fittings (top of condenser) were very rare/expensive in the 50s, rarely seen even in grad school; there's no ring on the ringstand supporting the flask; and it's the wrong kind of flask (Erlenmeyer, not round bottom). The big round bottom flask - must be at least 5 L- was rare even in grad school, and whatever-the-hell it's sitting in didn't exist; that's what cork rings were for. No way Gilbert would have made that many mistakes. I will give you that both safety glasses and other PPE (gloves, lab coat) were pretty much non-existent back then, so that is somewhat true to life.
Old Monsanto slogan "rearranging molecules for the benefit of mankind." LOL...how's that RoundUp lawsuit going?
ReplyDeleteI had my Gilbert Chem set back in the 1950s. Just about all those small glass bottled chemicals lined up on the kit's shelf would be verboten today.
ReplyDeleteBetter living through chemistry! I had a chemistry kit in the early 60s, spent most of my time trying to blow stuff up, with varying degrees of success.
ReplyDeleteHad one, loved it. Early 1960s. Erector Set too.
ReplyDeleteI had one too. And no one is going to blow up anything with Tannic Acid or Sodium Bicarbonate.
ReplyDeleteBut zinc dust, sulfur, a little alcohol to make a paste, and eh, voila! Rocket fuel! Or potassium nitrate and sugar from the kitchen, or sulfur and charcoal. Not to mention the fun to be had with iodine crystals and a bit of ammonia. THAT recipe was even in the unabridged dictionary back in the day. Or ferrous sulfide and any acid? Makes hydrogen sulfide...which is more lethal than cyanide, but fortunately stinks horribly at even lower concentrations. I'll give you that it was fairly hard to do anything really dangerous -by 1950s standards, remember- with the small sets; the bigger ones had more scope. BUT: 'hard', not 'impossible'. Really depended on how well the local drugstore was stocked, and how willing the owner was to sell to a kid. After 1957, the answer was "usually". Really the danger factor came down to how knowledgeable the kid was...and some of us were pretty sharp. The really smart ones generally had no problems; it was the almost smart ones that got burned.
DeleteOur local Rexall sold us large bottles of potassium nitrate, Sulphur was very easy to come by as well as charcoal from dad's stash. Every kid knew that recipe. Lost some fingerprints learning how to handling various acids compounds. Lighter fluid cannons...all great fun.
DeleteThe chemistry sets were real, but that pic sure looks like a photoshop. The condenser is connected backwards AND missing a water line; ground glass fittings (top of condenser) were very rare/expensive in the 50s, rarely seen even in grad school; there's no ring on the ringstand supporting the flask; and it's the wrong kind of flask (Erlenmeyer, not round bottom). The big round bottom flask - must be at least 5 L- was rare even in grad school, and whatever-the-hell it's sitting in didn't exist; that's what cork rings were for. No way Gilbert would have made that many mistakes. I will give you that both safety glasses and other PPE (gloves, lab coat) were pretty much non-existent back then, so that is somewhat true to life.
ReplyDelete