Kevin O'Brien (kob@paradise.net.nz)
Mon, 17 May 1999 20:26:36 +1200
Copper sulphate is frequently found is garden centres.
The comment on what we could get brings back similar memories. Nearly 50
years ago I could walk into a shop in the main street and buy all sorts of
chemicals and glassware. It wasn't a druggist but a full chemical supplier.
The place was heavenly. I later nearly became an industrial chemist and
had a marvellous time with it. Once bought the deadly poison, mercuric
chloride, over the counter; another time it was liver of sulphur which,
about the same year as I was making fireworks, was placed in the inkwell on
the teacher's desk. The teacher had a young student teacher and the two of
them spent the
morning looking at each other. Experimentation didn't stop at primary
school. Nearly got banned from the chem lab for investigating the physical
reaction of concentrated nitric acid and pot hydroxide; the noise caused too
much attention even though the test tube was intact. Got my own back by
electrolysing hydrochoric acid and collecting and measuring the resulting
chorine gas over a giant bath of concentrated hydrochoric acid using the
whole of the college supplies.
We have got far too cautious. I burnt the house down from cooking dinner;
never did any damage experimenting when I took special care. Where are our
physical chemists going to come from in the future if we deny the
opportunity to get a feel of the magic of chemistry in their youth.
How many kids have blown them themselves up making fireworks ?
The adults making hash oil on the kitchen stove are much more dangerous.
For the reactionaries against bureacracy most chemicals have some industrial
use and it is generally fairly easy to get them from an end user. The
chemists in many industrial plants are very friendly and generous. You may
only need 200ml but you are likely to get 2l given to you as a sample.
Kevin O'Brien
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, 16 May 1999 11:45
Subject: op ed on chemicals
>
> To "list mind":
>
> I think it was yesterday I read an op ed piece, I think in the NY Times,
> by someone who said that as an 11-year old boy he could get potassium
> cyanide at the local drugstore for his chemistry experiments. He described
> how the curiosity encouraged by chemistry sets & the like had led many
> into the sciences, then lamented that with all the regulations today, the
> set would be almost without chemicals.
>
> I'd meant to go back & re-read, also save, but being exemplary citizens we
> bound up the week's newspapers for recycling last night & somehow this got
> into it. So, aside from mentioning what is certainly of interest to all of
> us, I wondered if anyone had seen the item and could give me the
> coordinates. ??
>
> He also said, by the way, that you couldn't even get copper sulphate any
> more. I HOPE that was hyperbole, because copper sulfate needs to be with
> us...
>
> thanks and cheers,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:39:33