Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Fri, 28 May 1999 15:38:36 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 28 May 1999, Kallitype wrote:
>
> Lead nitrate is also a hazard, in combination with certain azides can
> form a high explosive----a situation I exploited in my foolish youth,
> making (1964) 4th of July noisemakers (PbAzide). The stuff went off as I
> was scraping it from the petri dish, peeling back the skin from 2
> fingers, burning my corneas, and scaring the hell out of the lab staff
> at the Univ of Mich Med school (I was fired from my summer job as a lab
> tech as a result). Oddly enough, I made a career until 1981 as a Lab
> Director in Ann Arbor at the Institute for Social Research, but that's
> another story.
Well, actually, so are fertilizer and what was that stuff they used in
Oklahoma? (a hazard). So I suppose would be my Parsons ammonia with a
bottle of vinegar. I mean for a really big bang all I have to do is drop
a metal bread box off the roof onto the sidewalk, n'est-ce pas?
But obviously, Terry, you were an intrepid researcher, far moreso than I.
On the other hand, my formula calls for (as I recall) 2 (two) grams of
lead nitrate. What kind of bang could I (no, not I, you) get with that?
I just have a feeling, BTW, and I suppose it's off-topic, but I never
heard of GIRLS blowing up the environs with their chemistry sets. The
gender-related issues of big bangs are, perhaps, *also* off-topic, but to
me the interesting question is -- when we have a more equable society,
WILL THEY? (I think not.)
Quiet Judy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:39:35