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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.
The death of a certain type of chemistry set. There are a pretty wide number of sets available including the specific kit mentioned in TFA (Chem C3000) and the reviews there both mention the difficulty in gathering some of the materials necessary to doing the expirements. I don't think it is just terrorism though. Terrorism, a litigious society, the war on drugs - I think any one alone would have probably been enough, and we've got all three.
I wonder if this might signal an opportunity for some entrepeneur to develop a virtual chem lab. It's not exactly the same, but at least it would give kids an opportunity to learn and explore. It could also offer features you wont find in any real chemistry set. Nice graphics showing what is going on on a much lower level. A virtual professor to help out and explain. Tools and materials that are too expensive or that really would be too dangerous.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Check out http://www.unitednuclear.com/ and build your own. Amazing stuff your mother wouldn't let you have. a
Mr. Wizard wasn't interested in "educating" youth, he was trying to build an army for his own jihad!
Patience, patience. We're getting there!
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).
..
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
Amateur Rocketry is now dead too. I remember going out to pick up a couple engines and found out about the new (impending) restrictions. The government pretty much handed the terrorists their victory and hobby science is one of the victims.
Sorry, thats far too sterile to really learn anything.
Until you burn your fingers on a hot beaker, or smell the reults of your last failed ( or successful ) experiment that catches on fire or cracks the bottom out of your flask, you never really learn. Its all theory without that sort of 'real' experience..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I was lamenting the passing of the hobbiest chemistry sets long before 9/11. You can still get them in various places and you can get a fairly wide selection of chemicals from a number of sources, including e-bay. Hell, I even bought some concentrated (70%) nitric acid off of e-bay not more than a year ago.
That said, the decline in hobby-level chemistry sets, as I mentioned before, began with the rise in the "new American Dream." You know, the one where you sue somebody for a million dollars. Liability for selling chemistry sets is, without a doubt, astronomical in these days of knee-jerk litigation... Nobody in their right mind would sell something to children that they could easily kill or wound themselves with, quite easily...
From my own personal history, when I had a chemistry set as a child, it came with glass tubing and an alcohol burner. You used it to heat the tubing and bend it into shapes to connect beakers and what have you together... Well, not being old enough to know better, and not patient enough to wait for the tubing to cool down on its own after bending it, I decided it might be best to cool it off in some water. I consider it fortunate I didn't lose an eye when the glass exploded. And that didn't involve any chemicals... Not that the stuff they provided was terribly dangerous, but it's dangerous enough that it's simply not a viable business anymore, is my point...
They burn if ignited.
They can cause physical injury if someone is stabbed with one, or has a hub thrown at them from close range.
They can be assembled into a gun that might look too realistic if viewed under poor conditions.
Got to get rid of this stuff now. Leave the kids ignorant of any toys that might actually teach them critical thinking by doing.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The thought behind this is the same as the one behind Germany's banning of certain computer security tools, and the assaults on cryptography. Dangerous tools exist in every important field, and those with no fear of falling behind will always want to ban more and more. We need another Sputnik moment to galvanize the angry reactionaries to demand more science instead of demanding more childproofing.
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.
Ah well, there's always mail-order.
Well... no, there isn't really. A good friend of mine who IS a rocket scientist (aerospace engineer, anyway) is a long-time rocket hobbyist and is now tinkering with propulsion systems in his garage. Don't get him started on ordering hobby rocket engines above a certain size, any kind of fuel ingredients, and even certain parts from the States over the last couple of years (we're in Canada, and apparently you can't find a lot of this stuff locally to start with).
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I've seen this trend for a while, and it predates 9-11.
I believe the issue is more of a "legal" than "security" issue. I think the high risk of lawsuits is what's killing these kits. In the old days, if you let your kids be unsupervized and they started eating the chemicals - you were considered a bad parent with a stupid kid. Now days, parents tell the kids to eat the chemicals in hopes of a winning lawsuit so they don't have to work anymore.
How many classic toys have gone the way of the dino because of our stupid frivolous legal system and lack of responsibility culture. I mean, Burger King/McDonald's (one of the two) had these flying princesses. They spin, their wings fly out and they whirl into the sky like helicopters. "Recalled and banned!" Why? Because they're uber dangerous. The fly toy might just land on the child's head. We can't have that. (Not like a baseball isn't a 100x more deadly - but we're not going to ban those.)
Bah...this plan deserves to be turned into an intergalactic entranceway.
Are chemistry sets getting crappier? Of COURSE they are! When I was growing up in the 1970s, the best I could get was a pale imitation of the ones my dad had in the garage. Now we're a generation along, and the ones I had look like danger waiting to be used. It has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with the obsessive culture of safety.
TFA is a big, steaming pile of shit. Read it carefully, and you'll find there's not a single 'explanation' of why things are the way they are that holds water.
It's just a grumpy twit with a computer. Nothing to see here.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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.
Is that how it goes in the states?
UK Gov : We are nice and want to sort everything out for you.
People : Hey, the media say you are nice! You got my vote.
UK Gov : Hurrah!
People : Hey, everything is still crap.
UK gov : Look at picture of us being concerned whilst we line our own pockets.
People : Things aren't improving.
UK Gov : We will pay our friends a load of tax money to look concerned and talk on tv about the high level of concern.
People : Nobody is actually doing anything constructive.
UK gov : STFU! Look, a circus! And bread!
People : Ooooh! Cool!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
You are missing the point. I AM a chemist. I probably understand orbitals and electronegativity better than most on Slashdot, but I do not fault chemistry sets for not being so directly educational.
At the age when kids would use chemistry sets (I started when I was about eight), so much underlying information is absent that it is unrealistic to teach real chemistry. You can't truly understand orbitals without quantum mechanics, which in turn requires linear algebra and multivariate calculus. So don't bother! When I played with a chemistry set I didn't understand pH or activity coefficients, but I still appreciated acid-base reactions. Nor had I ever heard of redox reactions or the Nernst equation, but electroplating was cool. Chemistry sets inspired me to study and learn at the meager level I could, and as I grew older and more knowledgeable they undoubtedly played a role in me going into science - and into organic chemistry in particular (with its heavy emphasis on experimental research).
Chemistry sets are motivators, not educators. They have historically done for chemistry what "Star Trek" has done for physics.