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Anti-Terrorism and the Death of the Chemistry Set
An anonymous reader writes "A recent unfortunate casualty of anti-terrorism laws is the home chemistry set. Once deemed the gift that saved Christmas, most Slashdotters probably remember early childhood experimentation with one of the many pre-packaged chemistry sets that were on the market. Unfortunately the FBI has decided that home chemistry sets are a threat to national security and they are rapidly disappearing from the market entirely. Those that remain are shallow boring versions of the old kits."
You do know the government is just trying to take care of us, right? Heck, I got the warm fuzzy long ago when Claritin-D, technically an OTC drug would only be sold from behind TC, and then only if you present picture identification, and even then you could only purchase enough to take one a day for ten days! Of course, if it isn't in stock when you want to purchase, you're out of luck... but you're being taken care of. (If you didn't know, the government was/is protecting us from the proliferation of meth labs with this inane process... not that I've noticed much evidence meth labs have disappeared. I have been a lot more congested though.)
Surprised chemistry sets didn't go this route long ago, what with their potential to put together explosives approaching that of a couple firecrackers combined! Warm fuzzies.
I hate to rant about good intentions, but these don't even smell like good intentions any more. Terrorists couldn't care less about chemistry sets.
Those that remain are shallow boring versions of the old kits.
What, no more ammonium nitrate, sodium pellets, and hunks of magnesium? Ah well, there's always mail-order.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Its interesting, this was the subject of the first episode of "Wired Science" a new PBS episode. I can not agree more w/ the premise. The unfortunate part of what makes it even worse I think is due to terrorism/columbine etc even looking up this stuff will get scrutiny that wasn't really the case back when we were all kids. As an example of this I get the impression that from the press "peroxyacetone" is now unfortunately used by terrorists all the time (in fact that was the absurd uncomprehensible basis for the "no liquids" on planes).
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What was interesting about the Wired Science show was that show bemoaned the fact that chemistry sets are watered down but the show had a chemist talk about how dangerous using nonlaboratory conditions to run one of the "old school" experiments were.
The irony of it was in this show that was going on about "dangerous" chemicals was that "dangerous" chemical was actually NI3 one of the standard things kids used to make all the time.
On a personal note, I was one of those kids who was a total pyromaniac in high school / middle school, we eventually grew out of it of course, but we pretty much made everything one could easily get a hold of and then some. All of this was done in using "household" chemicals (and some ordering from chemical supply companies). The practical upshot of being a complete pyromaniac in was I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in chemistry/CS and getting a Ph.D. in chemistry and now am a faculty member (in physics randomly enough). At the end of the day it was "blowing stuff up" that made science cool, perhaps a little dangerous, perhaps even foolhardy but the fact that you could do so much w/ everyday chemicals sparked that interest in science, atoms and plain old tinkering
I had several chemistry sets as a kid and spent many, many hours conducting experiments, often to my own harm (poisonous gases, chloral hydrate, etc...:-) High school chemistry almost got me arrested, and led in part to my expulsion from public school. Now, I'd like to get back into it, even if only for the theory, and as such a well designed virtual lab would suffice. Thanks for the idea, stoolpigeon!
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
I sure do. It must be 40 years old now, but I've still got my Lionel-Porter Chemcraft Chemistry Lab. I'm afraid to open the small chemical bottles to see if they're still good. I've got 17 of them, a Porter alcohol burner, a couple of test tube and the Adventures With Chemistry book, copyrighted in 1958, and filled with experiments. Apparently this was produced by the Lionel Toy Corporation.
The closest thing to terrorism I could find was Experiment 344 - Proteins Contain Sulfur: Mix some egg white with a smalll amount of Calcium Oxide (No. 20) to make a dough. Put this mixture in a test tube and heat. After the mass turns brown, cool it and fill the tube 1/4 full of water. Shake and pour off the brown liquid into another test tube. Add 2 measures of Sodium Bisulfate (No. 7) and heat to boiling. Remove fromthe heat and smell for hydrogen sulfide gas. This smell is like rotten eggs.
I had some fun with that one.
I remember getting a chemistry set when I was a kid (mid-eighties I suppose) and I think the most exciting thing I managed to do with it was to make some clear liquid turn red, then clear again.
It was rather disappointing when compared to some of my experiments with Things Found In Every Kitchen...
My (all girls) high school chemistry teacher expressed a lot of dismay at the changing laws about what chemicals she was allowed to show us. The education department provided these videos of "safe" demonstrations of the various properties of dangerous things that they were supposed to show us in lieu of a live demo. She'd show us the video... then swear us all to secrecy and produce an ancient brown jar of [sodium|sulfur|some other now banned chemical] from the bowels of the school's ancient chemical safe and repeat a fair portion of the experiments for us.
Sometimes it's good to go to an old school ... we only had to evacuate the building once (lesson learned: sulfur + fire = bad).
I'll never forget a particular class during organic chemistry. We'd made some crappy alcohol and were distilling it and she told us about how at university she and her classmates in the chemistry department used to have massive cocktail parties using the pure ethanol stock.
Some brief web surfing turned up Chem C3000 as being the best available. The glassware to chemical ratio is much higher than the sets of yore with racks and racks of little bottles of chemicals. I remember chemistry sets used to be advertised by the number of chemicals -- now it seems to be the number of "experiments".
The "tyranny of the minority" you refer to can mean two different things.
If you refer to the rich and powerful controlling the country, then it is called an oligarchy and is nothing new. The US constitution specifically tried to address one form of oligarchy, although the success at preventing less overt forms is debatable. In particular, you must be very careful about the means and ideology you choose at fighting oligarchy, or you might end up following this guy. Also see this proof that we'll be fucked no matter how we act.
On the other hand, you could be referring to the vocal minority problem, which, true, was not addressed in the constitution because they were not a problem at the time, but thanks to which we now live in the wonderful world of (insert-continent-here)-Americans, whites-first-is-racism-but-blacks-first-isn't, and inability to ever get anything done except through force.
Why am I not surprised that more and more complex chemistry and physics innovations now come from non-US citizens. You take away the tools for those things, and someone else who has them will gladly pick up the slack.
As an example, when we made stem cell research here in the US difficult by cutting governmental funding for it, the South Koreans seemed quit happy to pick up and run with the ball. As a result we will need to play catchup when those restrictions are eventually removed. By then, US based companies might not have the brainpower to do that. We'll need to try and import brains from elsewhere, or just write-off an entire industry. And that's just a single example among many.
These symptoms, along with the looming spectre of not-so-cheap liquid fuels are what convince me that the US will devolve into a "developing country" status within the next 10-15 years. It'll be interesting to hear the cry of anguish that the least common denominator-types let out when that day finally arrives.
At that point I'll bet that a hearty "I told you so" just won't be cutting it.