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Scientists Back Kiera Wilmot by Tweeting About All the Stuff They've Blown Up

558 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

rommelvr 14y ago
The amount of times my friends and I made pressure bombs (in a 600ml bottle) using NaOH and Al (exactly what was described in the article, and frankly, my first thought when reading this) at school and at home I can't even count on two hands. It was initially shown to us by our Chemistry teachers as a method for creating H2. The real danger isn't the expanding/produced hydrogen, it is the highly basic solution that is still reacting within the bottle. If you're nearby, and it explodes, depending on your volumes, the resultant spray can be seriously ... painful. Safety goggles and a nearby water source is a must have. Been a few times where I've rushed to the shower after my face started bleeding from corrosive spray after a mis timed attempt at this... If she was just capturing the hydrogen and igniting it... then it was completely harmless.
Zikes 14y ago
I really think the Mythbusters need to weigh in on this. Adam Savage seems to have a big presence in science education, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to speak on the matter.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I was just listening to Adam Savage's "Still Untitled" podcast where he talks about blowing stuff up as the least favorite part of what he does. That's not to say he won't come to her defense, but I was surprised to hear that.
  - cypher543 14y ago
    I think Jamie is the explosives guy. After all, two of his more well-known lines are "Jamie wants big boom!" and "When in doubt, C4!" I always got the impression that Adam liked building things more than he liked blowing them up. But I'm sure he enjoys a good fireball nonetheless.
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  - Nogwater 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure I listened to that (video-)podcast too and I think Adam was saying that blowing stuff up was the least of the three things that were named, not the least of all of the things that he does.
- joshguthrie 14y ago
  I was of this opinion too. MythBuster's always been known for "these guys try science for real" and "these guys blow stuff up and use real guns!!!". I remember a story some years ago when one of their test explosions was bigger than predicted and it ended in damage property in a nearby town but AFAIR they didn't get in law-related trouble.
coldcode 14y ago
I emptied out the entire science building by reducing DMSO. You've smelled nothing until you've smelled DMS.
- iab 14y ago
  As bad as/worse than ammonia?
- davidcuddeback 14y ago
  I caused a small brush fire playing with an Estes rocket. Fire department told me "try to be more careful."
  - davidcuddeback 14y ago
    Oh yeah, I also caused a small explosion at school by filling a water bottle with LN2.
  - Yhippa 14y ago
    I didn't start a fire but I remember launching those things when I was a kid. Did it in Boy Scouts and several after-school programs. Can you even launch those things these days without violating some sort of protected airspace or getting in trouble for some other nonsense rule?
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Yes. IIRC they tightened up the laws about buying those engines after 9/11 but later loosened them again. If you are launching large rockets then the FAA has some rules, but that is nothing new.
  - jfb 14y ago
    I remember hooking a D motor up to a guide wire (no rocket!) and firing it off in a lot behind my friend Jason's house. It took the predictably chaotic trajectory and again predictably shot straight through the closed window at a house under construction across the otherwise empty lot. I think we stuck around long enough to make sure that the place didn't catch fire, which, in retrospect, was probably the dumbest thing of all. Good times.
sultezdukes 14y ago
I wish the race card wouldn't be played as much in all of this, and that it's a conversation about schooling, science, and the risks that we should be willing to accept in a free country.
- ImprovedSilence 14y ago
  I agree. But maybe race is a part of it. Would there be felony charges if she was a white girl from the rich burbs?
  - andrewflnr 14y ago
    "Maybe"? Bringing race into a discussion makes everything worse. Don't do it unless you have very good evidence. There's enough injustice here already to talk about.
    - cle 14y ago
      I grew up in and around Bartow. I think there is very good reason to suspect that this may be race related.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    >Would there be felony charges if she was a white girl from the rich burbs? It's a legitimate question but I don't know if the answer is that clear. For something like this to happen you need two things: 1) Rules that are too harsh and too broad, that classify blowing a small hole in the ground by mixing household cleaners just to see what would happen as the same offense as an act of terrorism. 2) "Zero tolerance" law-and-order bureaucrats who don't care that they're ruining the lives of bright young people by charging them with crimes they may technically have committed but fall outside the legislative intent or any sense of proportionality. "Would this happen if she was a rich white girl" is a question of (2). It's plausible that some bureaucrats are racist or are more inclined to prosecute someone expected to have fewer resources to mount a defense, or that the bureaucrats in poor neighborhoods are more likely to draw a hard line. But the way to prevent things like this from happening is really to fix (1). As long as you have rules on the books that make what happened here into a serious offense, you're providing cover for overzealous prosecutors to defend themselves under "just following orders" type rationales that appeal to the letter of the law, and paint the supposed wrong not as being that this girl was charged but that the rich white girl wouldn't be. The problem here is that the rules allow them to do this to anyone. The rules need to change.
SeanDav 14y ago
I am surprised to see this happening in the USA, I thought that UK had the title sewn up for "Unbelievably Stupid Jobsworths"
- venomsnake 14y ago
  It is metastazing in the whole world. The whole overprotection thing. Our parents assumed that we were both smart and reckless. And parented accordingly. The current generation is brought up as if they are retards. The child safety is blown out of proportion ... in a friends house every edge was child proofed ...
  - csense 14y ago
    Part of the problem is that people these days have fewer children, closer together. Before, say, 1970, people learned parenting because there were lots of both much younger siblings and large families with lots of uncles/cousins living close by. Now families are small and geographically spread out, so people don't have lots of exposure to younger children. This means they don't get as much practical experience at dealing with kids, which makes them do stupid things, listen to stupid advice, or fall into groupthink.
noonespecial 14y ago
I put a little salt water in a 3 liter bottle (remember those... Shasta, baby) and melted 2 wires through the cap. I connected those to a 12 volt battery and let that cook until it was good and bulging, flipped it over and then used the firing coil from a motocycle to make a spark between the wires. It made a much bigger boom than we had expected. I believe the hole in the ground it left was nearly 2 feet deep. I think I was 13.
- ISL 14y ago
  Elegant. Particularly for thirteen.
- jules 14y ago
  I'm calling bullshit. I did that many times and never blew any significant hole in the ground (though because of impatience I started using 220V -- not a great idea). Yes it makes a loud boom, but a 2 foot hole no way.
  - hluska 14y ago
    The joy of being 12/13 is that you're still in that cusp between child and semi-adult. You've got enough motor skills and knowledge to be dangerous, but still have the childlike sense of awe that can make things look significantly larger than they are!
    - masklinn 14y ago
      > still have the childlike sense of awe that can make things look significantly larger than they are! Considering some of the fishermen[0] I know, that one never goes away. [0] and guys I subsequently shared a locker room with
  - aarongolliver 14y ago
    I agree. Though only if he used a plastic bottle. My father and I did this when I was in middle school. He (stupidly) held it in his hand. All it did was make a very loud boom, and not a two foot hole in his arm.
jerrya 14y ago
I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told a gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been safely installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD Bomb Squad (on my behalf.) I was uh, fingered by our Physics professor who ran into me before graduation, and said, "Jerry, what did you do?" Was pulled off the grad night school bus just before it left for a talk with Nick the Narc, Principal, and LAPD. We talked for a bit, I explained I hadn't done anything terribly unique, pissed them off by telling them I copied my designs from the Rockford Files (google it), and then they sent me off to Disneyland with the rest of my graduating class. (Had I known how popular that made me on the bus that night, I would have done it sooner.) Went to college, found one other engineering student in my small class of engineering students that had done practically the same thing I had done the same week within the same state. This was back before zero tolerance of course, and back before GWOT, and back before we decided we had to burn down our own village in order to save our village. Back when folks grew a sense of humor. So Kiera, I think what is being done to you is a gross abuse.
- enjo 14y ago
  So Kiera, I think what is being done to you is a gross abuse. I could not agree more.
- rurounijones 14y ago
  I really cannot parse that first paragraph, can anyone translate? (Or OP change it)
  - davidcuddeback 14y ago
    > I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told a gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been safely installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD Bomb Squad (on my behalf.) "Punk kid" was crawling on a roof. He was not authorized to be on said roof. He found the OP's science demonstration that he set up on the roof to go off during graduation. The "punk kid" told a gym teacher, who contained the experiment to his office and called the LAPD. The bomb squad arrived to investigate.
darkarmani 14y ago
Too bad she didn't make a dry-ice bomb. I think a lot of states don't categorize it properly as an explosive device because it is caused by a phase-change and not a chemical reaction. Oh and response to the officials that said this: >Their response: kids should learn that "there are consequences to their actions." That is a disingenuous response that could be used for any punishment. Kids can learn about consequences without needing a draconian punishment. No one every suggested not punishing her.
- zdw 14y ago
  My high school had a dry ice fogger in the theatre department for making the close to the ground fog effect for productions. Basically, it was an 80 gallon drum with a heating element in it, a basket that could be lowered and tubes for the fog to escape. You heated the water, then put the dry ice in the basket, clamped the top down tight, then plunged the dry ice into the water. Makes great fog that is mostly CO2 gas. Well, if you don't clamp the top down tight enough, it'll go flying off, throwing hot water everywhere. This happened during one production and did quite a bit of set damage. Thankfully nobody was scalded badly. Note, don't use this if you're doing a musical with an orchestra, or the fog flowing into the orchestra pit can result in woozy, oxygen deprived musicians.
  - sk5t 14y ago
    Well, it's not out of the question that the pit orchestra might appreciate that effect. What was the necessity of clamping down the top, given that there were open tubes for the fog (and pressure) to escape?
    - zdw 14y ago
      The gas expansion is extremely fast - you're basically turning a few pounds of dry ice from solid to gas + water vapor in a matter of seconds. With the pressures involved, if the top isn't on securely, shooting the top off is the path of least resistance.
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dkhenry 14y ago
I convinced my little brother to do a science experiment where we measured the explosive power of black powder by seeing how high it would launch a metal ball out of a tube ( We basically made a vertically fixed homemade cannon ) He brought our apparatus the balls and black powder to his presentation. Had he done this today I imagine he would have been arrested for possessing a weapon of mass destruction.
- mapt 14y ago
  You may jest, but in a ridiculous turn of events modern US law classifies all destructive devices (such as guns with a bore of more than 2 inches) as Weapons of Mass Destruction, under Title 18 USC § 2332a
- darkarmani 14y ago
  NJ has classified bb guns as firearms. If you are a 17 year old kid goofing around with a bb gun and shoot your friend (who hasn't?), you can be tried as an adult (felonies) for firearms violations. http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-Gun-Lawyer.shtml http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-Gun-...
  - JWLong 14y ago
    To hear my dad tell it, "back in the day" kids just had shoot-outs in the backyard with Red Ryder BB guns...
    - darkarmani 14y ago
      I've been shot with a BB gun a few times (late 80s, early 90s). Now, the way the law is that would be prison time for the shooter in NJ.
  - JWLong 14y ago
    To hear my dad tell it, "back in the day" kids just had shoot-outs in the backyard with Red Ryder BB guns...
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ISL 14y ago
If the government wants leaders in STEM, and, say, rocketry, they have to let people play. Heck, even if you're looking for new military ordnance engineers... Nobody gets good at building things that blow things up without playing with things that blow up. Play is important; it's how we learn.
- betterunix 14y ago
  The government does not want free thinkers who explore their curiosity designing its bombs. What the government wants are people who do what they are told, who follow procedures, and who do not ask unnecessary questions. The government wants the kids who only made little explosions when their chemistry teacher told them to and only using the chemicals they were told to use.
  - rosser 14y ago
    In a debate between what the government wants and what the rest of the world needs, I'm going to go with the latter, pretty much every time.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      The post I was replying to suggested that the government should not be punishing someone who could do great work in relevant chemistry work. My point was that the government may have a need for rockets and bombs, but that they will find the chemists with a conservative approach to science and work ethics rather than free thinkers. I do agree that the world needs more free thinkers, but the government does have substantial power in determining what sort of people will do society's intellectual work. For what it's worth, this is a problem that goes back a long way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Socrates should have never even been at that trial; I've got to say that I have always found Socrates' response to Crito to be immensely dissatisfying. It seems to me that it assumes the true nature of the law will never take take one by surprise, and (although it may have been practical at the time) I think it is a mistake to think that opting out of the law before being a victim of it is a practical thing to expect of people. His reasoning is basically just a more principled cry of "if you don't like it, leave it": "we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property." Immensely dissatisfying. I cannot stand Plato's telling of that entire series of events.
pbo 14y ago
I work at a hardware company - high-current and high-voltage power electronics. Things occasionnaly blow-up, but there have never been any serious consequences, because eveyone has very safe working habits, even the individuals who act like they don't care. Unfortunately this is not always the case for our clients..
riveteye 14y ago
Yeah, I'm a member of a hackerspace which is almost entirely made up of PhD's, engineers, security specialists, artists, creatives, inventors and innovators and almost all of what we do is related to fire and explosions (and electronics and art!). So yeah. Total support for this lady. I would contribute to a defense fund or college fund.
cafard 14y ago
We tried making thermite, but got sloppy and used pellets rather than powder. Our chemistry teacher (whom we did not inform of this) had fooled with stuff that went bang when he was a kid.
gavinlynch 14y ago
This is a page out of the anarchists cookbook. Ah, to be young again... ;) But seriously, unless this was sanctioned, why the hell would you be doing this at school?? She wasn't at the flippin' science fair, how exactly did she expect all this to go down? Did she expect the teaching staff to give her a standing ovation for successfully making a "drano bomb" on campus? You do it in the vacant lot across the street, or in the alley, or... literally just about anywhere besides a school. >>> "She wanted to see what would happen [when the chemicals mixed] and was shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too." This quote is silly. "She wanted to see what happened"? I don't think she's being intellectually honest here. The chances of mixing those chemicals by happenstance just "to see what would happen"..? Let's not be disingenuous. The only reason you mix those ingredients is if you know what they are capable of together. And extrapolating from that, we can re-write this as "she just wanted to see what the explosion would be like." And that, is horrible, horrible judgement that deserves to be met with reprimand from the school system. Without being part of an actual science project led by an actual teacher, you can't just light off fireworks in school because the science of it is fun. This is overwhelmingly obvious. That's behavior that can't be tolerated. I just wish we weren't in this insane system of zero tolerance where poor judgement by children in their teens--where ultimately nobody was hurt--can result in their lives being ruined forever. I've done things like this before, I empathize with all the stories i've read of people doing similar things. But this fist pumping about "oh it's no big deal it's in the name of science!" is a little confusing to me. She showed horrible, horrible judgement and could have actually hurt somebody. I understand that 2 felonies is ridiculous, but I don't know why many of you are acting as if we should be actively -encouraging- this behavior unless it's supervised by someone with authority at the school, and there is an actual learning experience. Many are jumping to the conclusion that this is the innocence of a curious mind that loves science and nothing more. I find it hard to make that jump without seeing more information; there are too few facts in this article. So I agree with part of your sentiments, and disagree with others where I feel you're thinking irrationally because of your own love of science.
- short_circut 14y ago
  This is exactly what I have been telling people. She knew exactly what she was doing.
hluska 14y ago
My Dad was a police officer. Had he chosen to indict me for all the stuff I destroyed in the name of science, I'd still be in jail. Luckily, when he was young, he did similarly stupid things (like chopping down a tree...onto his house). Whenever I'd cause particular mayhem, he'd take me to the local library to learn where my latest experiment had gone badly. Heck, thanks to his good attitude and interest in my passions, by the time I was 14, I could have gotten a job fixing VCRs, computers, televisions, radios, etc.
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pessimism 14y ago
I’ll make an exception to being vague about my personal details (although this is my personal HN account) and chime in with something eerily relevant. At my school, we literally had a chemistry teacher who went by the name Bombe Bo (Bob the Bomber, if you fancy a quasi-translation of the Danish moniker). The teachers amiably called him by the name as well—possibly because he once set an adult’s hair on fire during one of his experiments. He was, is, possibly the most beloved teacher at the school, and he was known for—you guessed it!—blowing things up. The man would seize any opportunity to make something go boom, and we all loved him for it. At our final class with him before graduation, he assigned his students to mix, I believe, bromide and acetone (and some). The students just saw it as another experiment, but as some of you have already realized ... unbeknownst to them, the students had created tear gas! To add insult to injury, he had brought a camera to snap photos of everyone’s faces. The guy was a black-belt in pranks. It was inconceivable for students not to love the guy—he was also one of the nicest people in the world and never had to scold anyone—ever. Because as hard as the course material could be, it was impossible to hate him—and chemistry.
- MertsA 14y ago
  Wow, that's pretty funny that your chemistry teacher would go so far as to violate the Geneva convention for the sake of a prank.
  - mynameisvlad 14y ago
    I'm sorry, what? How in the world does an international convention on warfare apply to a high school experiment?
    - shabble 14y ago
      Meant in the spirit of http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-chemical-warfare/ http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-chem..., I presume.
      - mynameisvlad 14y ago
iskander 14y ago
Me and several of my friends blew up a menagerie of large objects for the sheer joy of seeing an explosion, and the challenge of making an even bigger explosion the next time. Now we're all engineers, grad students, teachers, etc... I guess we're lucky we were in high school before the country went insane with fear.
rch 14y ago
While the felony charges are clearly overkill, I think it is counterproductive to defend a moment of very bad judgment by calling it science.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Bad judgement and science are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they have quite a colorful shared history. The only reason to say that this was not both seems to be a (frankly, rather suspicious) attitude about the likelihood that this girl had curiosity about science.
quinoa_rex 14y ago
Considering the amount of nonsense I got up to in 11th grade chemistry lab including but not limited to lighting various metals on fire to see what colour they burned and handling hydrochloric acid, a little aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner should have been met with a slap on the wrist and possibly a talk from someone in the science department about what mixing chemicals you're not familiar with can do. It was definitely not a smart choice to do it at school, and she was definitely aware of the fact that what she was going to do was going to go bang. Allowing for that, though - kids are curious, and with the advent of the Internet, if a kid's curiosity is piqued enough by something they saw on YouTube, I expect they're gonna try it, whether it's a Drano bomb or Mentos in Diet Coke. Were I the teacher I'd have provided a controlled demonstration of why not to do things and some resources for experimenting safely. Expelling the poor girl just discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again.
- csense 14y ago
  > discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again Maybe that's exactly the desired result for the sort of people who choose a bureaucratic career, and maybe it's exactly such people who decide her fate.
lambersley 14y ago
I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. Uhm...
- wavefunction 14y ago
  They would from me.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    Me too.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  >I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. What about an actual terrorist from the middle east, muslim, but wasn't trying to make a bomb this time and was only experimenting? Do you think they would get the same public support? I like the way you act like you are adding something to the conversation, but you really aren't. That isn't the situation, so let's deal with it when it happens, rather than trying to take away this girl's support.
lambersley 14y ago
I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. Uhm...
rdouble 14y ago
When I was 14, my friends and I used to blow up snowbanks in the backyard with these all the time. However, we were not doing it in the name of science. We were doing it because we were pre "Jackass" skater dickheads. I believe we found the instructions in either Thrasher or Big Brother magazine. I can't help but think the "science" angle is actually working against this young girl. This was obviously not a science project, and there are few things rednecks hate more than being told how to approach their business by people who think they are smarter than they are. It would be more beneficial to donate to the girl's defense fund than to pay lip service to some phony "it was science" defense.
- droithomme 14y ago
  "This was obviously not a science project" That's not obvious to me at all. It's obvious to me that it was science, a chemistry experiment in particular. Hard to see how it wasn't.
senorprogrammer 14y ago
Adult-induced fear should not be a reason for stifling childhood-inate curiosity. I remember as a kid we were extremely good at taking apart fireworks, putting them into other objects, and blowing those things up. Was that a good idea? Well, we were careful about and we had lots of fun and no one got hurt, so maybe yes, maybe no. Most importantly: at the end of the day it was just another way to explore the world and revel in the wonder. It pains me to see kids beaten down by adults who may never have experienced that thrill of experimentation and the simple "whoa!" that comes from blowing something up. Clearly missing out on that has damaged those adults in some fundamental way. (*I'll always feel a bit bad about blowing up my friend's sister's Barbie Dream Camper in this way...)
- solistice 14y ago
  Tell her it was a concept visualisation for Breaking Bad, but that the idea was stolen.
venomsnake 14y ago
Ahhh ... lets say I painted the floor with nitrogen triiodide in front of the teachers toilet when the philosophy teacher was taking a dump there. She jumped and screamed maybe a minute and on every jump she landed on a nice patch of substance and small new explosion and scream and so on ... It was fun being in eight grade.
hdctambien 14y ago
Before I ever did a science experiment, I had to write a lab report and detail (1) what I was going to do, (2) how I was going to do it, and (3) what I expected the results to be. If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? What happens when a student does one of these "science experiments" and actually blows up a classroom (or bathroom or playground) and kills a bunch of kids? Does it matter if he did it on purpose? Was he just doing science? Kids being kids? Was the teacher to blame? Were the parents to blame? If it was your kid that was maimed/killed in the explosion, would you even care if it was a "science experiment"? On the flip side, is it worth worrying about the rare case of a rogue-science-experiment-gone-wrong? Is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." Maybe not. I hope my kids are responsible with science. I hope the people around my kids are responsible with science. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
- falcolas 14y ago
  To paraphrase Adam Savage, who was quoting someone else... "The difference between fooling around and science is whether you write down the results after you're done." Of course, to say that you're not learning if you're not writing it down is wrong too.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Lab reports and notebooks are not what makes "Science". Science is developing a hypothesis, performing an experiment, observing the results, and re-evaluating your hypothesis. That's it. It doesn't matter if you write it down or turn it in. Kids do science all the time.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? So nothing before the 17th century was science? > is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." No it is not worth worrying about that signal, just like it isn't worth abolishing free speech to get anything remotely looking like bomb making instructions off the internet. Cut your nose to spite your face.
snappy173 14y ago
reminds me of when i accidentally started a fire in study hall ...
Xcelerate 14y ago
Chemical engineer here. What haven't I done? - Shattered stuff with liquid nitrogen: PB&J sandwich, bouncy balls, etc. - Melted various metals in crucibles over Fisher burners. Got burned a few times when I didn't realize the crucible lids were still hot. - Made ferrofluid. Not particularly dangerous, but very cool stuff. Search for it on Youtube. - Thermite reactions. These were fun. You had to start them with sparklers (or a lit magnesium strip). - Lit hydrogen bubbles (we used to have "fire Friday") - Chlorine and sodium reaction to make salt - Nitrogen triiodide (an explosive; can be detonated with one alpha particle) - Aluminum sulfur reaction: This one was interesting; the science lab book specified a small zinc sulfur reaction. I wanted to up the ante with aluminum and sulfur. Per the Wikipedia page which I read after the experiment: "This reaction is extremely exothermic and it is not necessary or desirable to heat the whole mass of the sulfur-aluminium mixture; (except possibly for very small amounts of reactants). The product will be created in a fused form; it reaches a temperature greater than 1100 °C and may melt its way through steel. The cooled product is very hard." Yeah, my friend and I finely ground up a HUGE batch of that aluminum and sulfer in a mortar and lit it in the fume hood. It looked like a rocket was going off. What we also didn't realize was that the product, aluminum sulfide, should NOT go in water, and water is exactly where I dumped the stuff. It stunk up the lab with hydrogen sulfide. I wonder how many brain cells I killed with that. - Burned some chromium compound. Can't remember what it was, but when I showed the instructor the product, he got really upset. He began scooping it out of the sink because apparently I'd created a carcinogen. - Found a container of mercuric (II) nitrate. It was the one thing the instructor wouldn't let us play with. That was all in high school. Mostly in the fume hood. College was a lot more boring (we had to wear goggles and gloves to handle Kool-aid), although I did accidentally spill a container of concentrated sulfuric acid all over the place in organic synth lab.
- peddamat 14y ago
  Potassium permanganate + Glycerin was my go-to as an amateur experimentalist in middle school / high school. My second favorite was common electrolysis, filling the garage with the smell of chlorine from impurities in the tap water / whatever container I was using at the time. I wonder if kids get to experience the unbridled joy of discovering chemistry on their own, nowadays. Of course, I'm sure parents are better off. My poor mother rushed me to the ER far too many times.
gtani 14y ago
In my freshman Chemistry lab, this, uh, underperforming student decided to put a beaker of some extremely volatile solvent (carbon tet, acetone, toluene?) on a lit bunsen burner, shooting flames about 12 feet high, damaging the facility pretty badly, and putting a stop to his medical school aspirations. That was one of the first events in my life where I realized i needed to suspend morbid fascination, and develop a fear of getting killed.
- chewxy 14y ago
  During my A levels, I had a friend who somehow managed to set the entire fume cabinet on fire, and in panic, he accidentally unlodged the tap controlling the bunsen burner, causing fire to come out of the tap as well. He's now a lawyer.
gcb0 14y ago
During a chemistry class where we were doing batteries by inserting metals into acid to light a small light bulb, i theorized that since the voltage depended on the area of contact with the metal, then using steel wool would make mads voltage. it did not work at first (maybe i had anything that would start a current with steel, don't really remember the details, or any chemistry from high school) but eventually i got some current (maybe some of the previous metal rod was still in the solution?). the light bulb wasn't burning brighter then before, but the part of the steel wool that was out of the acid sure was. burning metal in a cup of acid. and no eye protection.
oftenwrong 14y ago
I was suspended for 3 days in high school for burning a small strip of magnesium in the school. I did it exactly the way we did in my chemistry class. Personally, I think it was not dangerous. I was in a room without any wooden furniture, and with a concrete floor. Earlier that year someone had intentionally (according to investigators) started a fire in a stairwell that was being used to store chairs and desks, so the subject of fire in the school was a bit touchy. The incident also led to the installation of surveillance cameras throughout the school.
dan_manges 14y ago
One of my friends did the same thing in high school, except he put too much in the bottle. When he out the cap on, it instantly exploded. He had severe burns on his face, and if he wasn't wearing glasses, he might have ended up blind. While I don't think Kiera should be charged with a felony, the encouragement to experiment needs to be tempered with an understanding of risks and proper safety procedures.
psutor 14y ago
I am glad to see that this is getting proper attention, probably enough for Kiera's life not to be totally ruined by it. The exact same punishment was given to me for doing the same thing in 2004: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272
charlieok 14y ago
I knew a guy who got a perfect standardized test score, went to a pretty nice, selective college, and then got in some trouble there for making napalm. Not like felony trouble, but trouble.
rplnt 14y ago
What a horrible title. Had to read it few times before I decided I don't understand it. Why are some word capitalized and some not blows my mind. I won't even bother reading the article.
RockyMcNuts 14y ago
YouTube of a similar experiment - "The Works" cleaner with HCl + aluminum foil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu... The same DA didn't press charges against a kid who shot his brother dead with a BB gun. Not saying there should have been charges in that case, just highlights the absurdity of felony charges for a soda bottle bomb. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-girls-bomb-toilet-cleaner-and-foil/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-girls...
naftaliharris 14y ago
I put a capacitor in backwards once, went away from my circuit, and came back to smell and see it smoking and flaming.
alan_cx 14y ago
Here is my contribution to the curious confessions: Before I built my own computer, I was obviously in to electronics, preceded by electrics. My crimes are ones of electrocution. Both me and innocents. Every one was relieved when I moved from electrical stuff to electronics, then micro electronics. The all clear came when I got my first proper computer and focused on that instead.
crest 14y ago
My old chemistry teacher once welded the school doors together after he learned about thermite. His punishment was to repair the door and write an essay about the possible dangers handling thermite plus a few days helping the janitor clean the school grounds. He reminded us that while we might be tempted to repeat this he would recommend against destroying school property. So we locked the the school by attaching tie down straps to the school doors and leaving through a window in the second story.
sanj 14y ago
The part that is being missed here is the implications of a felony arrest: - can no longer vote - won't be able to get financial aid - can't go to a state college - can't get a loan In addition, being expelled means that she will have to move in order to continue school. Educators who don't understand the implications of what they are doing are demonstrating terrible judgment. You can read more: http://www.cfjj.org/arrestedfutures.php http://www.cfjj.org/arrestedfutures.php
- superuser2 14y ago
  > won't be able to get financial aid This is huge. To anyone who believes this punishment is appropriate, keep in mind that it means she will not go to college (unless her family is wealthy).
tn13 14y ago
Safety is important during science experiments but accidents happen.
aray 14y ago
As a social mechanism, I think this is a great idea. This is vetted members of the scientific community (as well as just about anyone) speaking their support and hopefully lending to the thought that punishing this girl is unfair. This is a pretty awesome use of twitter. Hashtags allow a common chain of discussion, and the low-barrier-to-contribution encourages anyone and everyone to weigh in their support. A lot of the comments here are "I did this similar thing when I was in school too". If you want to contribute, tweet as well with the hashtag.
ck2 14y ago
This story has been haunting me for a week. So far the only news I've seen cover it on a national basis on TV is Chris Hayes - anyone else? http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51740447 http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51740447
byandyphillips 14y ago
Charges dropped: https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot?utm_campaign=twitter_link_action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-d...
- DennisP 14y ago
  That link only says the charges haven't yet been filed, and advocates that they be dropped.
rdl 14y ago
At MIT we did some fun things: 1) Dropping whole blocks of sodium metal (5-10 pounds) into the Charles River, off a bridge. This is an annual thing, although I think it may have stopped at some point. 2) Taking non-dairy coffee creamer (a very fine powder) into a 5-story fireproof stairwell in a dorm, dropping the powder so it filled the air in the stairwell, and then demonstrating fuel air explosive 3) Soaking a tennis ball in gasoline, lighting it on fire, and playing soccer in a relatively fireproof hallway. Hilarity ensued when an RA decided to try to put out some minor secondary fire using a ... synthetic nylon sleeping bag as a fire blanket. Outside college but not in a warzone, I did a lot more interesting stuff. Tannerite, LPG cylinders, etc. In Iraq, I got to play with much more fun stuff, sometimes under competent supervision. I still have never gotten to fire an RPG or set off a claymore, though.
- ericd 14y ago
  When I was there, the coffeemate explosion was typically done in the EC courtyard right after the sodium drop. I think there might have been a hiatus on the sodium drop after someone found some unexploded on the bank near mass ave in 07 and it caused a fire when they chucked it in with some other wet debris.Not sure if it actually did stop or come back. Sad if it's gone, that was always one of my favorite events of the year.
meric 14y ago
In high school I got suspended for 2 days for creating a "broadcast storm" by plugging an ethernet wall outlet to itself. The school was without computer network for days. No felony charges.
varjag 14y ago
When 12, I tried electrolysis of hydrochloric acid for hydrogen, but nearly poisoned me and my friend with chlorine.
dhughes 14y ago
At this rate when a student opens a Coke or Pepsi in school it will be considered an explosive device.
murphysbooks 14y ago
My comments are (1) I hope the charges are dropped. (2) Maybe she should consider not fighting the expulsion. Who wants to be in the public school system as it currently stands?
pvaldes 14y ago
Santiago Ramón y Cajal... shoot a homemade cannon at the age of eleven.

558 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

The amount of times my friends and I made pressure bombs (in a 600ml bottle) using NaOH and Al (exactly what was described in the article, and frankly, my first thought when reading this) at school and at home I can't even count on two hands. It was initially shown to us by our Chemistry teachers as a method for creating H2. The real danger isn't the expanding/produced hydrogen, it is the highly basic solution that is still reacting within the bottle. If you're nearby, and it explodes, depending on your volumes, the resultant spray can be seriously ... painful. Safety goggles and a nearby water source is a must have. Been a few times where I've rushed to the shower after my face started bleeding from corrosive spray after a mis timed attempt at this... If she was just capturing the hydrogen and igniting it... then it was completely harmless.

Zikes 14y ago

I really think the Mythbusters need to weigh in on this. Adam Savage seems to have a big presence in science education, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to speak on the matter.

MartinCron 14y ago
I was just listening to Adam Savage's "Still Untitled" podcast where he talks about blowing stuff up as the least favorite part of what he does. That's not to say he won't come to her defense, but I was surprised to hear that.
- cypher543 14y ago
  I think Jamie is the explosives guy. After all, two of his more well-known lines are "Jamie wants big boom!" and "When in doubt, C4!" I always got the impression that Adam liked building things more than he liked blowing them up. But I'm sure he enjoys a good fireball nonetheless.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Nogwater 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure I listened to that (video-)podcast too and I think Adam was saying that blowing stuff up was the least of the three things that were named, not the least of all of the things that he does.
joshguthrie 14y ago
I was of this opinion too. MythBuster's always been known for "these guys try science for real" and "these guys blow stuff up and use real guns!!!". I remember a story some years ago when one of their test explosions was bigger than predicted and it ended in damage property in a nearby town but AFAIR they didn't get in law-related trouble.

coldcode 14y ago

I emptied out the entire science building by reducing DMSO. You've smelled nothing until you've smelled DMS.

iab 14y ago
As bad as/worse than ammonia?
davidcuddeback 14y ago
I caused a small brush fire playing with an Estes rocket. Fire department told me "try to be more careful."
- davidcuddeback 14y ago
  Oh yeah, I also caused a small explosion at school by filling a water bottle with LN2.
- Yhippa 14y ago
  I didn't start a fire but I remember launching those things when I was a kid. Did it in Boy Scouts and several after-school programs. Can you even launch those things these days without violating some sort of protected airspace or getting in trouble for some other nonsense rule?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Yes. IIRC they tightened up the laws about buying those engines after 9/11 but later loosened them again. If you are launching large rockets then the FAA has some rules, but that is nothing new.
- jfb 14y ago
  I remember hooking a D motor up to a guide wire (no rocket!) and firing it off in a lot behind my friend Jason's house. It took the predictably chaotic trajectory and again predictably shot straight through the closed window at a house under construction across the otherwise empty lot. I think we stuck around long enough to make sure that the place didn't catch fire, which, in retrospect, was probably the dumbest thing of all. Good times.

sultezdukes 14y ago

I wish the race card wouldn't be played as much in all of this, and that it's a conversation about schooling, science, and the risks that we should be willing to accept in a free country.

ImprovedSilence 14y ago
I agree. But maybe race is a part of it. Would there be felony charges if she was a white girl from the rich burbs?
- andrewflnr 14y ago
  "Maybe"? Bringing race into a discussion makes everything worse. Don't do it unless you have very good evidence. There's enough injustice here already to talk about.
  - cle 14y ago
    I grew up in and around Bartow. I think there is very good reason to suspect that this may be race related.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  >Would there be felony charges if she was a white girl from the rich burbs? It's a legitimate question but I don't know if the answer is that clear. For something like this to happen you need two things: 1) Rules that are too harsh and too broad, that classify blowing a small hole in the ground by mixing household cleaners just to see what would happen as the same offense as an act of terrorism. 2) "Zero tolerance" law-and-order bureaucrats who don't care that they're ruining the lives of bright young people by charging them with crimes they may technically have committed but fall outside the legislative intent or any sense of proportionality. "Would this happen if she was a rich white girl" is a question of (2). It's plausible that some bureaucrats are racist or are more inclined to prosecute someone expected to have fewer resources to mount a defense, or that the bureaucrats in poor neighborhoods are more likely to draw a hard line. But the way to prevent things like this from happening is really to fix (1). As long as you have rules on the books that make what happened here into a serious offense, you're providing cover for overzealous prosecutors to defend themselves under "just following orders" type rationales that appeal to the letter of the law, and paint the supposed wrong not as being that this girl was charged but that the rich white girl wouldn't be. The problem here is that the rules allow them to do this to anyone. The rules need to change.

SeanDav 14y ago

I am surprised to see this happening in the USA, I thought that UK had the title sewn up for "Unbelievably Stupid Jobsworths"

venomsnake 14y ago
It is metastazing in the whole world. The whole overprotection thing. Our parents assumed that we were both smart and reckless. And parented accordingly. The current generation is brought up as if they are retards. The child safety is blown out of proportion ... in a friends house every edge was child proofed ...
- csense 14y ago
  Part of the problem is that people these days have fewer children, closer together. Before, say, 1970, people learned parenting because there were lots of both much younger siblings and large families with lots of uncles/cousins living close by. Now families are small and geographically spread out, so people don't have lots of exposure to younger children. This means they don't get as much practical experience at dealing with kids, which makes them do stupid things, listen to stupid advice, or fall into groupthink.

noonespecial 14y ago

I put a little salt water in a 3 liter bottle (remember those... Shasta, baby) and melted 2 wires through the cap. I connected those to a 12 volt battery and let that cook until it was good and bulging, flipped it over and then used the firing coil from a motocycle to make a spark between the wires. It made a much bigger boom than we had expected. I believe the hole in the ground it left was nearly 2 feet deep. I think I was 13.

ISL 14y ago
Elegant. Particularly for thirteen.
jules 14y ago
I'm calling bullshit. I did that many times and never blew any significant hole in the ground (though because of impatience I started using 220V -- not a great idea). Yes it makes a loud boom, but a 2 foot hole no way.
- hluska 14y ago
  The joy of being 12/13 is that you're still in that cusp between child and semi-adult. You've got enough motor skills and knowledge to be dangerous, but still have the childlike sense of awe that can make things look significantly larger than they are!
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > still have the childlike sense of awe that can make things look significantly larger than they are! Considering some of the fishermen[0] I know, that one never goes away. [0] and guys I subsequently shared a locker room with
- aarongolliver 14y ago
  I agree. Though only if he used a plastic bottle. My father and I did this when I was in middle school. He (stupidly) held it in his hand. All it did was make a very loud boom, and not a two foot hole in his arm.

jerrya 14y ago

I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told a gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been safely installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD Bomb Squad (on my behalf.) I was uh, fingered by our Physics professor who ran into me before graduation, and said, "Jerry, what did you do?" Was pulled off the grad night school bus just before it left for a talk with Nick the Narc, Principal, and LAPD. We talked for a bit, I explained I hadn't done anything terribly unique, pissed them off by telling them I copied my designs from the Rockford Files (google it), and then they sent me off to Disneyland with the rest of my graduating class. (Had I known how popular that made me on the bus that night, I would have done it sooner.) Went to college, found one other engineering student in my small class of engineering students that had done practically the same thing I had done the same week within the same state. This was back before zero tolerance of course, and back before GWOT, and back before we decided we had to burn down our own village in order to save our village. Back when folks grew a sense of humor. So Kiera, I think what is being done to you is a gross abuse.

enjo 14y ago
So Kiera, I think what is being done to you is a gross abuse. I could not agree more.
rurounijones 14y ago
I really cannot parse that first paragraph, can anyone translate? (Or OP change it)
- davidcuddeback 14y ago
  > I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told a gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been safely installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD Bomb Squad (on my behalf.) "Punk kid" was crawling on a roof. He was not authorized to be on said roof. He found the OP's science demonstration that he set up on the roof to go off during graduation. The "punk kid" told a gym teacher, who contained the experiment to his office and called the LAPD. The bomb squad arrived to investigate.

darkarmani 14y ago

Too bad she didn't make a dry-ice bomb. I think a lot of states don't categorize it properly as an explosive device because it is caused by a phase-change and not a chemical reaction. Oh and response to the officials that said this: >Their response: kids should learn that "there are consequences to their actions." That is a disingenuous response that could be used for any punishment. Kids can learn about consequences without needing a draconian punishment. No one every suggested not punishing her.

zdw 14y ago
My high school had a dry ice fogger in the theatre department for making the close to the ground fog effect for productions. Basically, it was an 80 gallon drum with a heating element in it, a basket that could be lowered and tubes for the fog to escape. You heated the water, then put the dry ice in the basket, clamped the top down tight, then plunged the dry ice into the water. Makes great fog that is mostly CO2 gas. Well, if you don't clamp the top down tight enough, it'll go flying off, throwing hot water everywhere. This happened during one production and did quite a bit of set damage. Thankfully nobody was scalded badly. Note, don't use this if you're doing a musical with an orchestra, or the fog flowing into the orchestra pit can result in woozy, oxygen deprived musicians.
- sk5t 14y ago
  Well, it's not out of the question that the pit orchestra might appreciate that effect. What was the necessity of clamping down the top, given that there were open tubes for the fog (and pressure) to escape?
  - zdw 14y ago
    The gas expansion is extremely fast - you're basically turning a few pounds of dry ice from solid to gas + water vapor in a matter of seconds. With the pressures involved, if the top isn't on securely, shooting the top off is the path of least resistance.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

dkhenry 14y ago

I convinced my little brother to do a science experiment where we measured the explosive power of black powder by seeing how high it would launch a metal ball out of a tube ( We basically made a vertically fixed homemade cannon ) He brought our apparatus the balls and black powder to his presentation. Had he done this today I imagine he would have been arrested for possessing a weapon of mass destruction.

mapt 14y ago
You may jest, but in a ridiculous turn of events modern US law classifies all destructive devices (such as guns with a bore of more than 2 inches) as Weapons of Mass Destruction, under Title 18 USC § 2332a
darkarmani 14y ago
NJ has classified bb guns as firearms. If you are a 17 year old kid goofing around with a bb gun and shoot your friend (who hasn't?), you can be tried as an adult (felonies) for firearms violations. http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-Gun-Lawyer.shtml http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-Gun-...
- JWLong 14y ago
  To hear my dad tell it, "back in the day" kids just had shoot-outs in the backyard with Red Ryder BB guns...
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    I've been shot with a BB gun a few times (late 80s, early 90s). Now, the way the law is that would be prison time for the shooter in NJ.
- JWLong 14y ago
  To hear my dad tell it, "back in the day" kids just had shoot-outs in the backyard with Red Ryder BB guns...

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ISL 14y ago

If the government wants leaders in STEM, and, say, rocketry, they have to let people play. Heck, even if you're looking for new military ordnance engineers... Nobody gets good at building things that blow things up without playing with things that blow up. Play is important; it's how we learn.

betterunix 14y ago
The government does not want free thinkers who explore their curiosity designing its bombs. What the government wants are people who do what they are told, who follow procedures, and who do not ask unnecessary questions. The government wants the kids who only made little explosions when their chemistry teacher told them to and only using the chemicals they were told to use.
- rosser 14y ago
  In a debate between what the government wants and what the rest of the world needs, I'm going to go with the latter, pretty much every time.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    The post I was replying to suggested that the government should not be punishing someone who could do great work in relevant chemistry work. My point was that the government may have a need for rockets and bombs, but that they will find the chemists with a conservative approach to science and work ethics rather than free thinkers. I do agree that the world needs more free thinkers, but the government does have substantial power in determining what sort of people will do society's intellectual work. For what it's worth, this is a problem that goes back a long way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Socrates should have never even been at that trial; I've got to say that I have always found Socrates' response to Crito to be immensely dissatisfying. It seems to me that it assumes the true nature of the law will never take take one by surprise, and (although it may have been practical at the time) I think it is a mistake to think that opting out of the law before being a victim of it is a practical thing to expect of people. His reasoning is basically just a more principled cry of "if you don't like it, leave it": "we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property." Immensely dissatisfying. I cannot stand Plato's telling of that entire series of events.

pbo 14y ago

I work at a hardware company - high-current and high-voltage power electronics. Things occasionnaly blow-up, but there have never been any serious consequences, because eveyone has very safe working habits, even the individuals who act like they don't care. Unfortunately this is not always the case for our clients..

riveteye 14y ago

Yeah, I'm a member of a hackerspace which is almost entirely made up of PhD's, engineers, security specialists, artists, creatives, inventors and innovators and almost all of what we do is related to fire and explosions (and electronics and art!). So yeah. Total support for this lady. I would contribute to a defense fund or college fund.

cafard 14y ago

We tried making thermite, but got sloppy and used pellets rather than powder. Our chemistry teacher (whom we did not inform of this) had fooled with stuff that went bang when he was a kid.

gavinlynch 14y ago

This is a page out of the anarchists cookbook. Ah, to be young again... ;) But seriously, unless this was sanctioned, why the hell would you be doing this at school?? She wasn't at the flippin' science fair, how exactly did she expect all this to go down? Did she expect the teaching staff to give her a standing ovation for successfully making a "drano bomb" on campus? You do it in the vacant lot across the street, or in the alley, or... literally just about anywhere besides a school. >>> "She wanted to see what would happen [when the chemicals mixed] and was shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too." This quote is silly. "She wanted to see what happened"? I don't think she's being intellectually honest here. The chances of mixing those chemicals by happenstance just "to see what would happen"..? Let's not be disingenuous. The only reason you mix those ingredients is if you know what they are capable of together. And extrapolating from that, we can re-write this as "she just wanted to see what the explosion would be like." And that, is horrible, horrible judgement that deserves to be met with reprimand from the school system. Without being part of an actual science project led by an actual teacher, you can't just light off fireworks in school because the science of it is fun. This is overwhelmingly obvious. That's behavior that can't be tolerated. I just wish we weren't in this insane system of zero tolerance where poor judgement by children in their teens--where ultimately nobody was hurt--can result in their lives being ruined forever. I've done things like this before, I empathize with all the stories i've read of people doing similar things. But this fist pumping about "oh it's no big deal it's in the name of science!" is a little confusing to me. She showed horrible, horrible judgement and could have actually hurt somebody. I understand that 2 felonies is ridiculous, but I don't know why many of you are acting as if we should be actively -encouraging- this behavior unless it's supervised by someone with authority at the school, and there is an actual learning experience. Many are jumping to the conclusion that this is the innocence of a curious mind that loves science and nothing more. I find it hard to make that jump without seeing more information; there are too few facts in this article. So I agree with part of your sentiments, and disagree with others where I feel you're thinking irrationally because of your own love of science.

short_circut 14y ago
This is exactly what I have been telling people. She knew exactly what she was doing.

hluska 14y ago

My Dad was a police officer. Had he chosen to indict me for all the stuff I destroyed in the name of science, I'd still be in jail. Luckily, when he was young, he did similarly stupid things (like chopping down a tree...onto his house). Whenever I'd cause particular mayhem, he'd take me to the local library to learn where my latest experiment had gone badly. Heck, thanks to his good attitude and interest in my passions, by the time I was 14, I could have gotten a job fixing VCRs, computers, televisions, radios, etc.

deleted 14y ago

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pessimism 14y ago

I’ll make an exception to being vague about my personal details (although this is my personal HN account) and chime in with something eerily relevant. At my school, we literally had a chemistry teacher who went by the name Bombe Bo (Bob the Bomber, if you fancy a quasi-translation of the Danish moniker). The teachers amiably called him by the name as well—possibly because he once set an adult’s hair on fire during one of his experiments. He was, is, possibly the most beloved teacher at the school, and he was known for—you guessed it!—blowing things up. The man would seize any opportunity to make something go boom, and we all loved him for it. At our final class with him before graduation, he assigned his students to mix, I believe, bromide and acetone (and some). The students just saw it as another experiment, but as some of you have already realized ... unbeknownst to them, the students had created tear gas! To add insult to injury, he had brought a camera to snap photos of everyone’s faces. The guy was a black-belt in pranks. It was inconceivable for students not to love the guy—he was also one of the nicest people in the world and never had to scold anyone—ever. Because as hard as the course material could be, it was impossible to hate him—and chemistry.

MertsA 14y ago
Wow, that's pretty funny that your chemistry teacher would go so far as to violate the Geneva convention for the sake of a prank.
- mynameisvlad 14y ago
  I'm sorry, what? How in the world does an international convention on warfare apply to a high school experiment?
  - shabble 14y ago
    Meant in the spirit of http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-chemical-warfare/ http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-chem..., I presume.
    - mynameisvlad 14y ago

iskander 14y ago

Me and several of my friends blew up a menagerie of large objects for the sheer joy of seeing an explosion, and the challenge of making an even bigger explosion the next time. Now we're all engineers, grad students, teachers, etc... I guess we're lucky we were in high school before the country went insane with fear.

rch 14y ago

While the felony charges are clearly overkill, I think it is counterproductive to defend a moment of very bad judgment by calling it science.

jlgreco 14y ago
Bad judgement and science are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they have quite a colorful shared history. The only reason to say that this was not both seems to be a (frankly, rather suspicious) attitude about the likelihood that this girl had curiosity about science.

quinoa_rex 14y ago

Considering the amount of nonsense I got up to in 11th grade chemistry lab including but not limited to lighting various metals on fire to see what colour they burned and handling hydrochloric acid, a little aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner should have been met with a slap on the wrist and possibly a talk from someone in the science department about what mixing chemicals you're not familiar with can do. It was definitely not a smart choice to do it at school, and she was definitely aware of the fact that what she was going to do was going to go bang. Allowing for that, though - kids are curious, and with the advent of the Internet, if a kid's curiosity is piqued enough by something they saw on YouTube, I expect they're gonna try it, whether it's a Drano bomb or Mentos in Diet Coke. Were I the teacher I'd have provided a controlled demonstration of why not to do things and some resources for experimenting safely. Expelling the poor girl just discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again.

csense 14y ago
> discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again Maybe that's exactly the desired result for the sort of people who choose a bureaucratic career, and maybe it's exactly such people who decide her fate.

lambersley 14y ago

I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. Uhm...

wavefunction 14y ago
They would from me.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Me too.
darkarmani 14y ago
>I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. What about an actual terrorist from the middle east, muslim, but wasn't trying to make a bomb this time and was only experimenting? Do you think they would get the same public support? I like the way you act like you are adding something to the conversation, but you really aren't. That isn't the situation, so let's deal with it when it happens, rather than trying to take away this girl's support.

lambersley 14y ago

I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. Uhm...

rdouble 14y ago

When I was 14, my friends and I used to blow up snowbanks in the backyard with these all the time. However, we were not doing it in the name of science. We were doing it because we were pre "Jackass" skater dickheads. I believe we found the instructions in either Thrasher or Big Brother magazine. I can't help but think the "science" angle is actually working against this young girl. This was obviously not a science project, and there are few things rednecks hate more than being told how to approach their business by people who think they are smarter than they are. It would be more beneficial to donate to the girl's defense fund than to pay lip service to some phony "it was science" defense.

droithomme 14y ago
"This was obviously not a science project" That's not obvious to me at all. It's obvious to me that it was science, a chemistry experiment in particular. Hard to see how it wasn't.

senorprogrammer 14y ago

Adult-induced fear should not be a reason for stifling childhood-inate curiosity. I remember as a kid we were extremely good at taking apart fireworks, putting them into other objects, and blowing those things up. Was that a good idea? Well, we were careful about and we had lots of fun and no one got hurt, so maybe yes, maybe no. Most importantly: at the end of the day it was just another way to explore the world and revel in the wonder. It pains me to see kids beaten down by adults who may never have experienced that thrill of experimentation and the simple "whoa!" that comes from blowing something up. Clearly missing out on that has damaged those adults in some fundamental way. (*I'll always feel a bit bad about blowing up my friend's sister's Barbie Dream Camper in this way...)

solistice 14y ago
Tell her it was a concept visualisation for Breaking Bad, but that the idea was stolen.

venomsnake 14y ago

Ahhh ... lets say I painted the floor with nitrogen triiodide in front of the teachers toilet when the philosophy teacher was taking a dump there. She jumped and screamed maybe a minute and on every jump she landed on a nice patch of substance and small new explosion and scream and so on ... It was fun being in eight grade.

hdctambien 14y ago

Before I ever did a science experiment, I had to write a lab report and detail (1) what I was going to do, (2) how I was going to do it, and (3) what I expected the results to be. If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? What happens when a student does one of these "science experiments" and actually blows up a classroom (or bathroom or playground) and kills a bunch of kids? Does it matter if he did it on purpose? Was he just doing science? Kids being kids? Was the teacher to blame? Were the parents to blame? If it was your kid that was maimed/killed in the explosion, would you even care if it was a "science experiment"? On the flip side, is it worth worrying about the rare case of a rogue-science-experiment-gone-wrong? Is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." Maybe not. I hope my kids are responsible with science. I hope the people around my kids are responsible with science. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

falcolas 14y ago
To paraphrase Adam Savage, who was quoting someone else... "The difference between fooling around and science is whether you write down the results after you're done." Of course, to say that you're not learning if you're not writing it down is wrong too.
sliverstorm 14y ago
Lab reports and notebooks are not what makes "Science". Science is developing a hypothesis, performing an experiment, observing the results, and re-evaluating your hypothesis. That's it. It doesn't matter if you write it down or turn it in. Kids do science all the time.
darkarmani 14y ago
> If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? So nothing before the 17th century was science? > is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." No it is not worth worrying about that signal, just like it isn't worth abolishing free speech to get anything remotely looking like bomb making instructions off the internet. Cut your nose to spite your face.

snappy173 14y ago

reminds me of when i accidentally started a fire in study hall ...

Xcelerate 14y ago

Chemical engineer here. What haven't I done? - Shattered stuff with liquid nitrogen: PB&J sandwich, bouncy balls, etc. - Melted various metals in crucibles over Fisher burners. Got burned a few times when I didn't realize the crucible lids were still hot. - Made ferrofluid. Not particularly dangerous, but very cool stuff. Search for it on Youtube. - Thermite reactions. These were fun. You had to start them with sparklers (or a lit magnesium strip). - Lit hydrogen bubbles (we used to have "fire Friday") - Chlorine and sodium reaction to make salt - Nitrogen triiodide (an explosive; can be detonated with one alpha particle) - Aluminum sulfur reaction: This one was interesting; the science lab book specified a small zinc sulfur reaction. I wanted to up the ante with aluminum and sulfur. Per the Wikipedia page which I read after the experiment: "This reaction is extremely exothermic and it is not necessary or desirable to heat the whole mass of the sulfur-aluminium mixture; (except possibly for very small amounts of reactants). The product will be created in a fused form; it reaches a temperature greater than 1100 °C and may melt its way through steel. The cooled product is very hard." Yeah, my friend and I finely ground up a HUGE batch of that aluminum and sulfer in a mortar and lit it in the fume hood. It looked like a rocket was going off. What we also didn't realize was that the product, aluminum sulfide, should NOT go in water, and water is exactly where I dumped the stuff. It stunk up the lab with hydrogen sulfide. I wonder how many brain cells I killed with that. - Burned some chromium compound. Can't remember what it was, but when I showed the instructor the product, he got really upset. He began scooping it out of the sink because apparently I'd created a carcinogen. - Found a container of mercuric (II) nitrate. It was the one thing the instructor wouldn't let us play with. That was all in high school. Mostly in the fume hood. College was a lot more boring (we had to wear goggles and gloves to handle Kool-aid), although I did accidentally spill a container of concentrated sulfuric acid all over the place in organic synth lab.

peddamat 14y ago
Potassium permanganate + Glycerin was my go-to as an amateur experimentalist in middle school / high school. My second favorite was common electrolysis, filling the garage with the smell of chlorine from impurities in the tap water / whatever container I was using at the time. I wonder if kids get to experience the unbridled joy of discovering chemistry on their own, nowadays. Of course, I'm sure parents are better off. My poor mother rushed me to the ER far too many times.

gtani 14y ago

In my freshman Chemistry lab, this, uh, underperforming student decided to put a beaker of some extremely volatile solvent (carbon tet, acetone, toluene?) on a lit bunsen burner, shooting flames about 12 feet high, damaging the facility pretty badly, and putting a stop to his medical school aspirations. That was one of the first events in my life where I realized i needed to suspend morbid fascination, and develop a fear of getting killed.

chewxy 14y ago
During my A levels, I had a friend who somehow managed to set the entire fume cabinet on fire, and in panic, he accidentally unlodged the tap controlling the bunsen burner, causing fire to come out of the tap as well. He's now a lawyer.

gcb0 14y ago

During a chemistry class where we were doing batteries by inserting metals into acid to light a small light bulb, i theorized that since the voltage depended on the area of contact with the metal, then using steel wool would make mads voltage. it did not work at first (maybe i had anything that would start a current with steel, don't really remember the details, or any chemistry from high school) but eventually i got some current (maybe some of the previous metal rod was still in the solution?). the light bulb wasn't burning brighter then before, but the part of the steel wool that was out of the acid sure was. burning metal in a cup of acid. and no eye protection.

oftenwrong 14y ago

I was suspended for 3 days in high school for burning a small strip of magnesium in the school. I did it exactly the way we did in my chemistry class. Personally, I think it was not dangerous. I was in a room without any wooden furniture, and with a concrete floor. Earlier that year someone had intentionally (according to investigators) started a fire in a stairwell that was being used to store chairs and desks, so the subject of fire in the school was a bit touchy. The incident also led to the installation of surveillance cameras throughout the school.

dan_manges 14y ago

One of my friends did the same thing in high school, except he put too much in the bottle. When he out the cap on, it instantly exploded. He had severe burns on his face, and if he wasn't wearing glasses, he might have ended up blind. While I don't think Kiera should be charged with a felony, the encouragement to experiment needs to be tempered with an understanding of risks and proper safety procedures.

psutor 14y ago

I am glad to see that this is getting proper attention, probably enough for Kiera's life not to be totally ruined by it. The exact same punishment was given to me for doing the same thing in 2004: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272

charlieok 14y ago

I knew a guy who got a perfect standardized test score, went to a pretty nice, selective college, and then got in some trouble there for making napalm. Not like felony trouble, but trouble.

rplnt 14y ago

What a horrible title. Had to read it few times before I decided I don't understand it. Why are some word capitalized and some not blows my mind. I won't even bother reading the article.

RockyMcNuts 14y ago

YouTube of a similar experiment - "The Works" cleaner with HCl + aluminum foil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu... The same DA didn't press charges against a kid who shot his brother dead with a BB gun. Not saying there should have been charges in that case, just highlights the absurdity of felony charges for a soda bottle bomb. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-girls-bomb-toilet-cleaner-and-foil/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-girls...

naftaliharris 14y ago

I put a capacitor in backwards once, went away from my circuit, and came back to smell and see it smoking and flaming.

alan_cx 14y ago

Here is my contribution to the curious confessions: Before I built my own computer, I was obviously in to electronics, preceded by electrics. My crimes are ones of electrocution. Both me and innocents. Every one was relieved when I moved from electrical stuff to electronics, then micro electronics. The all clear came when I got my first proper computer and focused on that instead.

crest 14y ago

My old chemistry teacher once welded the school doors together after he learned about thermite. His punishment was to repair the door and write an essay about the possible dangers handling thermite plus a few days helping the janitor clean the school grounds. He reminded us that while we might be tempted to repeat this he would recommend against destroying school property. So we locked the the school by attaching tie down straps to the school doors and leaving through a window in the second story.

sanj 14y ago

The part that is being missed here is the implications of a felony arrest: - can no longer vote - won't be able to get financial aid - can't go to a state college - can't get a loan In addition, being expelled means that she will have to move in order to continue school. Educators who don't understand the implications of what they are doing are demonstrating terrible judgment. You can read more: http://www.cfjj.org/arrestedfutures.php http://www.cfjj.org/arrestedfutures.php

superuser2 14y ago
> won't be able to get financial aid This is huge. To anyone who believes this punishment is appropriate, keep in mind that it means she will not go to college (unless her family is wealthy).

tn13 14y ago

Safety is important during science experiments but accidents happen.

aray 14y ago

As a social mechanism, I think this is a great idea. This is vetted members of the scientific community (as well as just about anyone) speaking their support and hopefully lending to the thought that punishing this girl is unfair. This is a pretty awesome use of twitter. Hashtags allow a common chain of discussion, and the low-barrier-to-contribution encourages anyone and everyone to weigh in their support. A lot of the comments here are "I did this similar thing when I was in school too". If you want to contribute, tweet as well with the hashtag.

ck2 14y ago

This story has been haunting me for a week. So far the only news I've seen cover it on a national basis on TV is Chris Hayes - anyone else? http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51740447 http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51740447

byandyphillips 14y ago

Charges dropped: https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot?utm_campaign=twitter_link_action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-d...

DennisP 14y ago
That link only says the charges haven't yet been filed, and advocates that they be dropped.

rdl 14y ago

At MIT we did some fun things: 1) Dropping whole blocks of sodium metal (5-10 pounds) into the Charles River, off a bridge. This is an annual thing, although I think it may have stopped at some point. 2) Taking non-dairy coffee creamer (a very fine powder) into a 5-story fireproof stairwell in a dorm, dropping the powder so it filled the air in the stairwell, and then demonstrating fuel air explosive 3) Soaking a tennis ball in gasoline, lighting it on fire, and playing soccer in a relatively fireproof hallway. Hilarity ensued when an RA decided to try to put out some minor secondary fire using a ... synthetic nylon sleeping bag as a fire blanket. Outside college but not in a warzone, I did a lot more interesting stuff. Tannerite, LPG cylinders, etc. In Iraq, I got to play with much more fun stuff, sometimes under competent supervision. I still have never gotten to fire an RPG or set off a claymore, though.

ericd 14y ago
When I was there, the coffeemate explosion was typically done in the EC courtyard right after the sodium drop. I think there might have been a hiatus on the sodium drop after someone found some unexploded on the bank near mass ave in 07 and it caused a fire when they chucked it in with some other wet debris.Not sure if it actually did stop or come back. Sad if it's gone, that was always one of my favorite events of the year.

meric 14y ago

In high school I got suspended for 2 days for creating a "broadcast storm" by plugging an ethernet wall outlet to itself. The school was without computer network for days. No felony charges.

varjag 14y ago

When 12, I tried electrolysis of hydrochloric acid for hydrogen, but nearly poisoned me and my friend with chlorine.

dhughes 14y ago

At this rate when a student opens a Coke or Pepsi in school it will be considered an explosive device.

murphysbooks 14y ago

My comments are (1) I hope the charges are dropped. (2) Maybe she should consider not fighting the expulsion. Who wants to be in the public school system as it currently stands?

pvaldes 14y ago

Santiago Ramón y Cajal... shoot a homemade cannon at the age of eleven.