7 ms·

As a grad student I somehow turned my experiment under the hood into an evacuation of the entire building, by reducing DMSO to DMS and discovering that Dimethyl

As a grad student I somehow turned my experiment under the hood into an evacuation of the entire building, by reducing DMSO to DMS and discovering that Dimethyl Sulfide makes a great building emptier, especially since the hood system sucked (or rather did not). Two Nobel winners and a host of professors and students abandoned the building post haste and they made me go back in to look up whether it was dangerous or not (this was before mobile devices). Thankfully it stinks something fierce but is not fatal likes its cousin, Hydrogen Sulfide. No wonder I decided programming was safer, code might blow up but it doesn't Blow Up. I also worked in the lab with a guy who worked with ether and smoked in the lab.

digi_owl 10y ago
At least until said code controls something that involves massive amounts of energy (mechanical or otherwise). Edit: Btw, stinky chemistry sounds like something right out of Max Gergel's memoirs. A book that Lowe mentioned: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/05/27/max_gergels_memoirs http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/05/27/max... And that i have been meaning to finish reading.
- lostboys67 10y ago
  At my first job we had a computer controlled wave tank we had built. The guy I shared an office with said you had to be careful when programming it, as a divide by 0 error could have tried to send the paddle to its full travel in 0 seconds. Which would have created a wave so strong it would have flooded the entire lab - and that was using water as working fluid we hade some experiments that used molten metal or Freon
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  If you've been enjoying Gergel, definitely give Ignition! a read, also a Lowe recommendation. It's a first-hand account of early rocket fuel research, and it is hair-raising like no chemistry I have ever heard of. http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Already have, and loved every page.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
makr17 10y ago
I have a fun memory of a lab in high school, must have been sophomore chem... Mix sodium bicarbonate and hydrochloric acid, it bubbles a lot, precipitate NaCl (table salt) out of the result. My lab partner and I finished that in about 3 minutes. And then, fueled by boredom, we started hunting for other bases and acids to mix... for science! Everything is going well until the teacher races over, grabs the beaker and practically throws it under a hood. I can't remember the precise inputs, but the resulting gas was _noxious_.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Definitely sulphuric base and HCl for max chlorine intake and the beautiful underreacted SH.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    Boredom + science = fun.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Isn't that precisely what (scrubbed) hoods are for? Failing that, isn't that why your log of on site chemicals is kept well away from them and where they might be used, and the use area preferably having a nice set of windows for external viewing?
forgotpwagain 10y ago
> I also worked in the lab with a guy who worked with ether and smoked in the lab. I'm super curious -- when were you a grad student?
- coldcode 10y ago
  1980
  - forgotpwagain 10y ago
    Aha -- explains the smoking in lab bit.

digi_owl 10y ago

At least until said code controls something that involves massive amounts of energy (mechanical or otherwise). Edit: Btw, stinky chemistry sounds like something right out of Max Gergel's memoirs. A book that Lowe mentioned: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/05/27/max_gergels_memoirs http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/05/27/max... And that i have been meaning to finish reading.

lostboys67 10y ago
At my first job we had a computer controlled wave tank we had built. The guy I shared an office with said you had to be careful when programming it, as a divide by 0 error could have tried to send the paddle to its full travel in 0 seconds. Which would have created a wave so strong it would have flooded the entire lab - and that was using water as working fluid we hade some experiments that used molten metal or Freon
Bartweiss 10y ago
If you've been enjoying Gergel, definitely give Ignition! a read, also a Lowe recommendation. It's a first-hand account of early rocket fuel research, and it is hair-raising like no chemistry I have ever heard of. http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Already have, and loved every page.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

makr17 10y ago

I have a fun memory of a lab in high school, must have been sophomore chem... Mix sodium bicarbonate and hydrochloric acid, it bubbles a lot, precipitate NaCl (table salt) out of the result. My lab partner and I finished that in about 3 minutes. And then, fueled by boredom, we started hunting for other bases and acids to mix... for science! Everything is going well until the teacher races over, grabs the beaker and practically throws it under a hood. I can't remember the precise inputs, but the resulting gas was _noxious_.

AstralStorm 10y ago
Definitely sulphuric base and HCl for max chlorine intake and the beautiful underreacted SH.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Boredom + science = fun.
mjevans 10y ago
Isn't that precisely what (scrubbed) hoods are for? Failing that, isn't that why your log of on site chemicals is kept well away from them and where they might be used, and the use area preferably having a nice set of windows for external viewing?

forgotpwagain 10y ago

> I also worked in the lab with a guy who worked with ether and smoked in the lab. I'm super curious -- when were you a grad student?

coldcode 10y ago
1980
- forgotpwagain 10y ago
  Aha -- explains the smoking in lab bit.