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Breaking Bad's Scientific Consultant On Making Meth and More
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Science sat down with Breaking Bad science consultant Donna Nelson, an organic chemist at the University of Oklahoma. Nelson was one of several expert advisers for the show who began consulting several episodes in on multiple topics, including how to make Walt a realistic chemist. She discusses the accuracy of the show, whether making meth is as straightforward as it seems on the series, and her favorite scene."
AKA shake n bake.
Years and years ago, I worked for an environmental lab and some local law enforcement agency (Sheriff's department, I think) asked us to help determine whether they'd found the dump from a meth lab. Step one was to figure out how meth is made. So I found every recipe I could (using Steve's computer, of course) and ran them by the chemists. "Poison, poison, poison, death, that could work, poison, poison, that could work." Then they took the potentially valid recipes and worked out what the byproducts would be created at each phase and gave the cops a list of chemicals to test for.
Oh, and there are a lot of hoops to jump through to [legally] obtain a meth standard. Had to put in a lock box and access protocol to store an amount that was too small to give a rat a buzz.
One time I was out on a set visit and Vince said, "What do you think about making the meth blue?" I advised him not to do it. He said, "Is there not some way it could be blue?" And I said again, "No, don't do it."
So apparently, there is no actual chemistry basis for making Walt's meth blue... even the P2P/methylamine process does not yield a blue color. Vince Gilligan just really wanted the meth blue so he can use these cool 60's songs:
Crystal Blue Persuasion - from Gliding Over All, music playing over montage showing Walt's new meth operation with Todd and Lydia and DeClan. Parodied by the Simpsons.
My Baby Blue - from the last episode, final scene, when Walt gets what he deserved. The special love I had for you.
They helped so that we wouldn’t be presenting a cookbook on how to make meth and told him what steps to leave out so that anyone mimicking the procedures would fail.
Yup. A TV show giving inaccurate information is going to prevent people from making meth.
“Now is catalytic hydrogenation, I forget, is that protic or aprotic?"
Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that...
It was necessary to have Walt's product be immediately distinguishable from everything else on the street. Otherwise, the DEA would need to run samples of every batch seized through the lab to check purity etc. to determine if a given product was cooked by "Heisenberg". While this might have been interesting to the science geeks here on /., it would have been boring to the average viewer.
I have a feeling that pinning the blue color on the P2P cook process was done by the writers before they had a scientific adviser onboard. By then, it was too late, and they were stuck with it.
The big scientific screwup on the show is exactly how Walt was managing to get nearly 100% purity from a process that in real life would result in 50% purity at best. Unlike starting from pseudoephedrine, the P2P process results in a racemic mixture of 2 different stereoisomers of methamphetamine, only one of which has any recreational value.
This bit of chemical magic could have been passed off as Walt's "secret process", but on the show both Gale and Declan's crew were also shown creating meth at significantly better than 50% purity using the P2P route, without benefit of Walt's knowledge.
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There was even an episode in The Walking Dead where Walt's signature blue meth made an appearance in Merle's drug stash.
How do people even make meth in this country? Anything with Pseudoephedrine in it requires them to scan your drivers license.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Once Walt and Jesse moved beyond making a few ounces at a time, they couldn't get enough OTC pseudoephedrine pills through their small network of "smurfs".
They had already committed to providing 4 pounds of product to a rather psychotic distributor, so Walt decided to use a different synthetic route (P2P from phenylacetic acid via high temperature catalyst, then reductive amination with methylamine and aluminum amalgam), rather than the standard pseudoephedrine reduction using red phosphorus and iodine that they started out with.
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You see evidence all the time on the news and if you want to see a ton more, read police reports. Most criminals are morons.
So, if a TV show shows them how to make meth, you'll get some dummies that'll say "Hey let's do that!" Thus, best if it doesn't actually work.
Of course people can just go and look it up, if they are really interested, but this helps weed some people out.
She's either been heavily photoshopped or she's an alien from V wearing a rubber mask.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Don't know about mercury fulminate, but they were supposed to be using hydrofluoric acid which will dissolve glass (which is why it came/comes in plastic jugs and why WW told Jesse to put the body in a plastic barrel) and porcelain and iron/steel. I don't know if it would dissolve a body very well.
Fuq disqus.
I was always impressed by the accuracy of the show, but there are a few small flaws. They're so small that I'm not even really disappointed though.
1. Methylamine isn't *that* difficult to make
2. After switching to a "P2P" cook, they are showed sourcing phosphorus, a material no longer required since aluminum amalgam was the reduction agent used instead.
3. They show a graham condenser in the wrong orientation
4. Even if methylamine *was* that difficult to make, theres a method that generates it in-situ using nitro methane instead, which is easily obtainable and legal.
5. When cooking the P2P method, the resulting meth would've been racemic, they would've needed a stereoselective solvent or something similar to make something as potent as the HI-P reduction method (which is stereoselective).
Thats only 5 errors that stood out to me, which for a show with that many seasons, is damn impressive!
...of how to cook hard-to-obtain Sudafed by starting with readily available methamphetamine...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Don't know about mercury fulminate, but they were supposed to be using hydrofluoric acid which will dissolve glass (which is why it came/comes in plastic jugs and why WW told Jesse to put the body in a plastic barrel) and porcelain and iron/steel. I don't know if it would dissolve a body very well.
Mythbusters say no.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Mercury fulminate used to be used in primers - it's a very sensitive explosive.
It won't work like in the show(as mythbusters showed).
I'll note that in firearms you're hitting the cap with a small pointed hammer or a spring propelled pin, and the spring is fairly stiff. It's all about taking enough force to make your thumb hurt at most, and concentrating it into a small enough area to cause the detonation, which will spread from there.
Of course, I always assume science is wrong in TV shows, from exploding cars to drug production. They just need to make it realistic enough to not break my suspension of disbelief.
I don't read AC A human right
heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf
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um... you're using an entertaining TV show to tell you whether the science portrayed on another entertaining TV show is real?
I think your reality meter is in need of recalibration.
Why not? Just because something is entertaining, doesn't mean that the science is wrong. Due to the dangerous chemicals involved, the Mythbusters had scientists and experts working on this episode. Jamie and Adam were essentially just presenting.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Look at the picture! She took something, too!!!! ;)