4 ms·

Yeah, but most books don't go into detail for separating the resulting hydrogen and oxygen, testing for hydrogen by burning it, or observing the difference in u

Yeah, but most books don't go into detail for separating the resulting hydrogen and oxygen, testing for hydrogen by burning it, or observing the difference in using hydrogen and oxygen to burn things. Sure, it's easy to observe, but be careful... I do really like the book's can-do attitude, though.

a_t48 9y ago
Yeah, especially as it says your lab can be in your bedroom or basement. Generating larger amounts of flammable gas indoors and burning it is less sane.
- scoggs 9y ago
  Hopefully nobody at home is an active smoker, either!
- wavefunction 9y ago
  As long as you have proper ventilation what's the real issue? Yes, I may have investigated installing a chemical hood in my house, but it was all theoretical... for now.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Sheets of acrylic can make great housings for things like this; they're transparent, and a plastics shop will cut you panels to size for cheap. One example of an instrument you can make with acrylics is a gel electrophoresis box: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_box.pdf http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_bo... Some chemicals can dissolve plastics, but hey. It's cheap, sturdy, and easy to assemble. Acrylic cement has the consistency of turpentine and sets pretty quickly.
  - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
    Hey, lost some seared tissue, rhymes with whats the real issue.
moonbug22 9y ago
Really? That's high school chemistry in this part of the world
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  That's awesome - and it really isn't so dangerous as long as you are careful and do your experiments around others who also know what they're doing. I actually love the sense of 'you can do anything' that this sort of education inspires. But, y'know, it's not the sort of thing I'd hand a 14-year-old before heading off for the weekend. And imagining what would happen if you brought this to your chemistry class today in the US is pretty amusing.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    What's a typical high school chemistry experiment in the USA? Do the students do things, or does the teacher do everything? Burning hydrogen was a standard method for testing its presence, from when I was about 11-12 in 1997.
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Measuring the volume of one liter of water. But, more seriously, it depends almost entirely on the highschool itself. I know of a range going from essentially no lab work to undergrad material with looser report grading - and I imagine that top flight magnet schools must have all sorts of amazing equipment.
    - rjeli 9y ago
      My high school chemistry was a year of learning the names of glassware and many experiments of just measuring water. We did one titration at the end. once, we got to watch the teacher go into the back room and get two chemicals, mixing them together and we watched it change colors. then back to usual. Didn’t even learn dimensional analysis til undergrad.
    - eat_veggies 9y ago
      I took chemistry in high school last year, so I can answer this. Some of our most exciting labs were - identifying different metal oxides by the color of their flames over a bunsen burner - paper chromatography to identify a the "crime suspect" who wrote a "ransom note" based on different pens - made brass pennies with zinc dust, copper pennies, and a hot plate - made our own chalk We did all the labs on our own except for the brass pennies, because it was way more efficient to stir the pennies up all at once in the zinc powder than individually. I really enjoyed that class, but I do go to a school that prides itself in math and science, and our football team loses every time :)
burntrelish1273 9y ago
As a kid, I had this vintage science experiments book[0] that had that and helicopter-parent-forbidden chemistry experiments (ahh, the era before abuse of torts). Inverted test-tube semi-submerged, filled completely with water, over each electrode to see progress IIRC. 700 Science Experiments for Everyone 1958, UNESCO, Hardcover, 221 pp.

a_t48 9y ago

Yeah, especially as it says your lab can be in your bedroom or basement. Generating larger amounts of flammable gas indoors and burning it is less sane.

scoggs 9y ago
Hopefully nobody at home is an active smoker, either!
wavefunction 9y ago
As long as you have proper ventilation what's the real issue? Yes, I may have investigated installing a chemical hood in my house, but it was all theoretical... for now.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Sheets of acrylic can make great housings for things like this; they're transparent, and a plastics shop will cut you panels to size for cheap. One example of an instrument you can make with acrylics is a gel electrophoresis box: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_box.pdf http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_bo... Some chemicals can dissolve plastics, but hey. It's cheap, sturdy, and easy to assemble. Acrylic cement has the consistency of turpentine and sets pretty quickly.
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  Hey, lost some seared tissue, rhymes with whats the real issue.

moonbug22 9y ago

Really? That's high school chemistry in this part of the world

leggomylibro 9y ago
That's awesome - and it really isn't so dangerous as long as you are careful and do your experiments around others who also know what they're doing. I actually love the sense of 'you can do anything' that this sort of education inspires. But, y'know, it's not the sort of thing I'd hand a 14-year-old before heading off for the weekend. And imagining what would happen if you brought this to your chemistry class today in the US is pretty amusing.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  What's a typical high school chemistry experiment in the USA? Do the students do things, or does the teacher do everything? Burning hydrogen was a standard method for testing its presence, from when I was about 11-12 in 1997.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Measuring the volume of one liter of water. But, more seriously, it depends almost entirely on the highschool itself. I know of a range going from essentially no lab work to undergrad material with looser report grading - and I imagine that top flight magnet schools must have all sorts of amazing equipment.
  - rjeli 9y ago
    My high school chemistry was a year of learning the names of glassware and many experiments of just measuring water. We did one titration at the end. once, we got to watch the teacher go into the back room and get two chemicals, mixing them together and we watched it change colors. then back to usual. Didn’t even learn dimensional analysis til undergrad.
  - eat_veggies 9y ago
    I took chemistry in high school last year, so I can answer this. Some of our most exciting labs were - identifying different metal oxides by the color of their flames over a bunsen burner - paper chromatography to identify a the "crime suspect" who wrote a "ransom note" based on different pens - made brass pennies with zinc dust, copper pennies, and a hot plate - made our own chalk We did all the labs on our own except for the brass pennies, because it was way more efficient to stir the pennies up all at once in the zinc powder than individually. I really enjoyed that class, but I do go to a school that prides itself in math and science, and our football team loses every time :)

burntrelish1273 9y ago

As a kid, I had this vintage science experiments book[0] that had that and helicopter-parent-forbidden chemistry experiments (ahh, the era before abuse of torts). Inverted test-tube semi-submerged, filled completely with water, over each electrode to see progress IIRC. 700 Science Experiments for Everyone 1958, UNESCO, Hardcover, 221 pp.