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Illustrated Guide To Home Chemistry Experiments
ptorrone writes "The sad fact is chemistry and chemistry sets have been on the decline for the last couple decades. All is not lost, however. We (MAKE magazine) have a new book called The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. Learn how to smelt copper, purify alcohol, synthesize rayon, test for drugs and poisons, and much more. In this video, Bob the chemist shows how to get around a pesky DEA regulation so you can make your own iodine. GeekDad also reviewed the book."
Awesome! I want my own lab so bad.
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Just remember to use cash when paying for this one, else you might find your name on a 'watch' list.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
For my money, though, it doesn't get better than the Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition. It was written after chemistry was mostly understood, but before the advent of commercial chemical suppliers. Thus, in the nitric acid entry, for example, you'll find instructions for making it from nitre and sulphuric acid. In a modern text it would be described theoretically, and would likely be stated in such a way that you'd start looking for a place to buy sulphuric acid and potassium nitrate without getting on a government watchlist, but with the encyclopedia you go outside and build a nitre-bed, or maybe scrape some saltpeter off your basement wall if you're lucky, and go hunt down some sulphur to make the acid. It doesn't leave out the theory, but it gives you a real sense of how doable most chemical processes are even without a lab or a chemical supplier.
ResidntGeek
Hmmm...usually I think we would see this as book review. But honestly, how many times would a direct link to the product page not produce a rage of criticism of how /. is selling out?
Then again, us, non-professionally trained chemists that happen to be geeks would love to learn more about practical and interesting science, including and but not limited chemistry. This book hits right at what I'd want on my bookshelf, next to my "Good Eat's" cookbook and 60-70's era DIY books.
So what do y'all think it is? Slashvertisment or a stab at the modern sterile environment that is public school science?
import system.cool.Sig;
Be sure to wear your safety goggles. I know!
Although I must say that the eye heals suprisingly well after a minor injury. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/21/2265 (Hyphema is blood in the eye.)
As some have mentioned you run a risk of being targeted as a terrorist by your local law enforcement if they discover such a lab in one's posession.
However, I think one is far more likely local law enforcement will suspect production of methamphetamine.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If I work in a chemistry lab, and I spend way more hours a day there than I do at home, then does that count as home chemistry? What about my coworker who for one summer decided to sleep in the lab (admittedly in the office area) nightly? Does that count?
The goggles, they do nothing!
I've heard a lot of people talk about how great the 1911 version of EB is- based on this article, I would not trust it for anything remotely historical that involves something outside of Europe. This isn't a minor error- this is a massive ton of ignorance.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
How come every single biology article, even the recent one about discovery of 120,000 year old bacteria, gets tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" but books that tell kids how to "Purify alcohol by distillation, Produce hydrogen and oxygen gas by electrolysis, Smelt metallic copper from copper ore you make yourself" doesn't?
There are billions of much more highly evolved bacteria in you right now than what scientists dug up. On the other hand, my next door neighbors can't cook bacon without the whole place filling up with smoke, if they tried to purify their own alchohol, I'm quite certain they would die of methanol poisoning, blow up the building, or both simultaneously. And then homeland security would arrive just in time to arrest me.
I guess it comes down to Hollywood has never made a movie about the potential dangers of home copper smelting.
Who does he think he is, Bill Nye the Science Guy?
"Sir, we've received a tip that you've been illegially converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. Please put your hands behind your head and step outside."
"But-but everyone does that!"
"That's no excuse for breaking the law, sir. Now, please step outside. Don't make me use my taser."
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Because a biological disaster could start a plague or blight or damage the ecosystem, directly or indirectly killing millions; while a home chemistry experiment gone bad is unlikely to kill more people than the experimenter and maybe a bystander or two.
I guess we might count the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as the worst "home chemistry disaster" ever; 168 people were killed. Compared to a epidemic, or even a modest biological warfare effort, that's nothing. Which is not to belittle the impact of that attack, but in the big picture of disasters, stacked up against the tens of millions killed by the Spanish Flu, it's clear that a biological mishap has a lot more potential for mass killing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Britannica? Not quite an error, old chap.
BTW I liked the quaintness of my Ninth Edition.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I imagine if you made a weak tea of Ephedra it might be good for a decongestant. I don't have any use for it, myself, but once I came across a GIANT shrub of it, (I'll not say where) and I tried chewing a twig for data purposes. I spit it out fast, it is more bitter than Drake's I.P.A. My ears were ringing for a while, and my face was numb for three or four hours. I don't know if you should isolate the constituents, they'd surely think the worst, but its just a weird-ass bush that doesn't need any care. Grow it by your Aloe vera.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
It's about common and uncommon threats... same reason people are more afraid of flying than driving a car, even though the chances of dying in a car crash are orders of magnitude higher than in a plane crash. It's not every day that scientists dig up ancient bacteria... on the other hand, most of us have played chemist a few times as a kid.