The mark of the Chemist
- Thread starter Miffmoff
- Start date
I spilled something on my finger that turned the end of it black, then changed to bleached white over two weeks, then went back to normal. I have no idea what it was.
I was holding a test tube that had no cap, and I put on goggles while I was holding it. I spilled the green liquid all over my shoulder and the floor and didn't even realize it until the teacher screamed at me.
My teacher then had me clean it up, but as I was wiping the floor she turned the lights off so I couldn't see.
*****.
My teacher then had me clean it up, but as I was wiping the floor she turned the lights off so I couldn't see.
*****.
I remember chemically melting an aluminum cup. That was fun.
My favorite was making snapping paste with some leftover stuff from a lab experiment. I covered the faucet handles of the profs sink while she was getting supplies for a demonstration. She nearly had a heart attack when she went to get some water. BANG.
My favorite was making snapping paste with some leftover stuff from a lab experiment. I covered the faucet handles of the profs sink while she was getting supplies for a demonstration. She nearly had a heart attack when she went to get some water. BANG.
I was making smoke bombs and I overheated the mixture just a tad and there was a "violent exothermic reaction"... for which read sparks and thick smoke shooting out of the mouth of the flask... which then proceeded to shatter. If you're familiar with making smoke bombs you need to stir the mixture with a glass rod the entire time or this happens (it also happens if you overheat it), so I was lucky I didn't burn my hand. I pulled my hand away just in time.
... the lab counter-top wasn't quite so lucky and it took me an hour of cleaning up and airing the room, but apparently I did a good job because there were no questions later.
[Note: I've made smoke bombs hundreds of times and I've only done this twice... both times I was a bit tired and I think I may have either overheated the mixture... the moral of this story is that a good chemist is a well-rested chemist]
Biggest chemistry fail I've ever seen was my chemistry teacher at high school deciding to demonstrate the reaction of potassium and water... by throwing a 4 x 4 cm (about 1 1/2 inch cube) of potassium into the school's Olympic size swimming pool.
The resulting detonation resulted in a plume of water about 4 meters high... and then an equally abrupt lack of water in the school pool as the poor drained because the explosion had shattered the shell of the pool.
Fun chemistry teacher, bad engineering teacher. Apparently he slept through the lectures on hydrostatic pressures. Still, made for an excellent lesson, and we all avoided having to see each other in our speedos for an entire year.
... the lab counter-top wasn't quite so lucky and it took me an hour of cleaning up and airing the room, but apparently I did a good job because there were no questions later.
[Note: I've made smoke bombs hundreds of times and I've only done this twice... both times I was a bit tired and I think I may have either overheated the mixture... the moral of this story is that a good chemist is a well-rested chemist]
Biggest chemistry fail I've ever seen was my chemistry teacher at high school deciding to demonstrate the reaction of potassium and water... by throwing a 4 x 4 cm (about 1 1/2 inch cube) of potassium into the school's Olympic size swimming pool.
The resulting detonation resulted in a plume of water about 4 meters high... and then an equally abrupt lack of water in the school pool as the poor drained because the explosion had shattered the shell of the pool.
Fun chemistry teacher, bad engineering teacher. Apparently he slept through the lectures on hydrostatic pressures. Still, made for an excellent lesson, and we all avoided having to see each other in our speedos for an entire year.
Rubbed acid in my eyes once. Very fun.
Turned on the gas pipe when someone had lit a match.
and many other things that end in pain for me and others.....
Turned on the gas pipe when someone had lit a match.
and many other things that end in pain for me and others.....
Knicked myself with a scalpel when trying to dissect a brain.... got a perma scar. Lets call its bio chem since not real chem lol
Got a little to close a crucible when putting in some of the chemicals and singed off about a fourth of one of my eyebrows. It took forever to grow back. The teacher didn't even scold me he just mocked me for the rest of the year. Best teacher I ever had.
I did that one. We were running a titration and I accidentally pulled the valve out of the buret, spilling almost 40 mL of 12M hydrochloric acid all over my hand. Luckily, I was wearing gloves (safety win!), but it was still one of the biggest "O SHI-" moments in my life.LiberalSquirrel said:
I made a test tube explode and the resulting mixture melted a hole into the desk. Luckily it only made a small popping sound and since everyone was busy & talking noone noticed.
Woah, woah, robotics... is that normal school or university? Because I'm going to take that as my uni study, but I've never heard they teach it in other schools too.Billion Backs said:
Different continent of course, but still.
OT: We had pussy chemistry. Only 0,1 mol acids if ever, I had to light the bunsen burner all the time because the two girls I worked with were apparently afraid of fire... it wasn't very interesting. And most of the time we were either copying from the blackboard or doing chemistry I can do at home with ease.
I've only really had one proper accident in a Chemistry lesson. I was heating up a test tube that was clamped to a stand and I suddenly smell burning. I'd got the angle wrong and the bunsen ended up torching the rubberised bit of the clamp. Woops. The worst part wasn't the unholy smell but the fact that my teacher noticed and told me what a twit I'd been and also another teacher came in the room, asked what the smell was and my teacher duely told him, oh, the shame of it.
An unplesent experiance, well strange experiance in a lab was getting chlorine gas up my nose (I think it was chlorine), man the tingling, it was unpleasent in that worryingly pleasent even though you know it's not good for you kind of way.
An unplesent experiance, well strange experiance in a lab was getting chlorine gas up my nose (I think it was chlorine), man the tingling, it was unpleasent in that worryingly pleasent even though you know it's not good for you kind of way.
Making explosives that will actually explode under its own weight out of iodine is pretty high up on the stupidity scale.
Well... One time I ended up with a 2L beaker filled with concentrated acid that had to be neutralized, I fucked something up there. Teacher was livid, she actually had to pour solid NaOH into the beaker to try to neutralize it, and ended up pretty much making the damned thing boil. Fun times.
Another time, I was trying to distill something, and I ended up letting the heat get away from me, and the entire thing kinda evaporated out. (It was a micro-scale distillation, and I don't work well on the micro scale. Not well at all.)
I also dumped Acetone/HCl/NH3/H2SO4, and several other things on my hands on a very regular basis.
Interestingly enough, I always seem to get astounding results in my labs. Rarely more than 10% error. I imagine my teachers/professors would have been impressed... Had I ever turned in any labs *cough*
Another time, I was trying to distill something, and I ended up letting the heat get away from me, and the entire thing kinda evaporated out. (It was a micro-scale distillation, and I don't work well on the micro scale. Not well at all.)
I also dumped Acetone/HCl/NH3/H2SO4, and several other things on my hands on a very regular basis.
Interestingly enough, I always seem to get astounding results in my labs. Rarely more than 10% error. I imagine my teachers/professors would have been impressed... Had I ever turned in any labs *cough*
I'm sure you're exaggerating, but how did you hold something for a whole ten seconds without realizing it was burning you?Miffmoff said:
But OT!: I don't remember the exact proceedings, but we put some black iron in a big bucket and were trying to make melt by lighting the strip of magnesium we'd stuck in it. Of course it wouldn't light, so we broke out the blow torch ("we" being my teacher, mind you). Oh, that worked just fine, nice and contained. Then we ("we" being the class and myself, mind you) decided it wasn't "pretty" enough. So we stuck a couple pennies in it, thinking "OOOH!! Green fire! Neat!" Here's how it went:
Magnesium lights.
Black Iron reacts, heating to 400 C almost instantly.
Pennies don't heat to 400 C almost instantly.
Iron expands, pennies sink to the bottom.
Pennies melt, expanding rapidly under a cap of molten iron.
I backpedal wildly, making up swears as I go.
This all in the space of about 4, maybe 5 seconds. It was basically a frag grenade made of molten iron -- there was a nice half-circle of soot and melted paint on the side of the building for weeks. On the bright side, no one got hurt, I had a sweet video to show to my friends on my phone for a while, and I got to keep one of the cooled nuggets of iron, which I still have. And it was prettier.