Michael Raiford nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/10/20 23:29:
> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> John VanSickle wrote:
>>
>>> [1] Yes, those of you who live near The Villages in Florida may have 
>>> seen this on the news.
>>
>> When I was at school, the teacher *showed* us a bottle of mercury from 
>> the chemicals cupboard.
>>
>> Yes, it probably shouldn't have a disintegrated cork for a lid. Still, 
>> metalic mercury is quite harmless. It's the oxide you want to worry 
>> about. What that...? Oh... Yes, it does oxidize quite well in air.
>>
>> Apparently the school was "probably not supposed to keep this stuff 
>> any more". Whatever. I was *far* more concerned by the bottle at the 
>> back labelled "WARNING: Explosive when dry" containing an amorphus dry 
>> powder...
> 
> Hmmm.... No, probably not good.
> 
> I was always intrigued by the metallic canister with the yellow and 
> black international symbol for radiation on it, which resided in the 
> physics classroom. Apparently in the later physics classes, they get to 
> play with a Geiger counter.
> 
>> We also got to watch the teacher play with some sodium in a big water 
>> thank. And then us students got to play with some... magnisium ribbon. 
>> (Trust me, soaking magnisium in water isn't nearly so interesting. 
>> After an hour, a few bubbles had formed...)
> 
> Our chemistry teacher used to do some after school sessions. I showed up 
> to more than a few. One of which was begun by him handing everyone latex 
> gloves, then handing is little chunks of a grayish, soft metal. Oh, 
> yeah... and there was this big bucket of water ...
> 
> Sodium is fun. XD
> 
> He also filled a huge rubber balloon with a 2:1 ratio of pure hydrogen 
> and oxygen. Then took a flame to it. People on the other side of the 
> school campus heard the resulting bang.
> 
> Strangely, he was reassigned to biology the next year ...
In high school, secondary 3, the equivalent of 9th grade, in the "Initiation aux 
science physiques" class, me played with some geiger counters. We ALL got 
several samples of various radioactive materials: radiun pellets, uranium 
sulfide powder, radioactive iodine, radioactive cobalt, and some others... and 
tested whitch one gave the highest readings.
We did water electrolisis, then played with fire on what we collected. It was 
fun playing with sulfuric acid! The teacher told us never to touch that stuff 
with our skin, and let us see the effect on any substance we could think of 
available in the class, by ourself.
We made some black powder, and tested it.
When I finished going to that school, he was still giving that course, with the 
same substances.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

Post a reply to this message