Michael Raiford wrote:

>> 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.

According to my dad, the label was an exaggeration.

(I got a chain email once: "You know you've been working in a lab too 
long when...

...you can tell the difference between the cheap lab coats and the 
expensive ones...

...everything is far less dangerous than you thought...")

> 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.

o_O

You get radioactive stuff just to prove the counter works?!

Actually, anyone who's ever played with one of these will confirm a very 
disturbing fact: Almost *everything* is slightly radioactive! Seriously. 
Everything I put near the thing registered very slightly. Including my 
lunch...

> 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

I recall Sodium as being yellow... (At least, unless you get it. The 
resulting surface is silver, but corrodes faster than a Landrover.)

> 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 ...

Hmm... 0:-)

Well, my dad can't get fired from being my dad.

- When we ran out of matches, my dad used a mixture of glycerin and 
potassium permangenate to light the bonfire. (Actually, a small ant 
crawlled into the thick sticky glycerin blob moments before ignition...)

- My dad made gunpowder once. It made quite a bang...

- Apparently if you mix amonia and some other compound together, the 
resulting mixture explodes when it dries out. We smeared it over a 
cardboard box in the garden. For some reason, it only ever exploded at 
night... A succession of small pops and bangs.

- There's a trick you can do with (IIRC) hydrogen chloride. It absorbs 
water quite well. So if you will a bottle with hydrogen chloride and 
then put a tube into a tub of water, you get a little fountain inside 
the bottle as the pressure drops. For added amusement, add some 
indicator to the water. (I recall the blue liquid emerging in the bottle 
as a bright yellow fountain.)

- Flash powder. Finely powdered alunimium with potassium permangenate. I 
have no idea what colour the flash it actually produces is - as this 
point, you're usually just glad to be able to *see* again! (I actually 
put some of this stuff into the school bonfire - but that's another 
story. It seems I'm currently fresh out of KMnO4...)

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