2 ms·

I use to do this when I was a kid but with pool HCl instead of drano. I even did it once at school (very far away from anyone or anything) and I consider mysel

by craigyk 13y ago

I use to do this when I was a kid but with pool HCl instead of drano. I even did it once at school (very far away from anyone or anything) and I consider myself lucky to not get caught or punished. There was a teacher that knew it was probably me when it went off, but they just looked at me and rolled their eyes. I knew immediately I had shown some pretty damn poor judgement. While I don't think she deserves felony charges or even expulsion, this isn't a praise-worthy "scientific mistake".

droithomme 13y ago
According to the police report, it was HCl, toilet bowl cleaner. The HCl one is cool because if you have more than a trivial amount of foil, all the HCl reacts with it giving hydrogen gas and harmless aluminum chloride salt as the products. People keep calling this an explosion or a bomb, it's not really either. The bang comes from the plastic bottle popping from the H2 released, and the H2 recondensing with atmospheric O2 back into H2O which is the source of the "smoke" seen in videos, which is just water vapor. Those who are talking about "explosions", "bombs", "IEDs", and "incendiary devices" at the police department, and on this and other boards, are exceptionally scientifically ignorant and are not qualified at all to comment on any of this. The real solution here is for those people to take some classes and stop being ignorant and saying nonsense about "bombs" and such. Performing this reaction is not illegal either in any state's laws I've seen. That's why these cases never go to trial - the authorities try to get the kids to plead guilty as a bargain. What these kids need is a good lawyer and a counter suit for malicious prosecution. And people who don't know science need to shut up about all this and spend more time studying, listening, or just minding their own business rather than falsely claiming expertise in things they are ignorant about. Widespread ignorance about science, including among intelligent technical and business "trained" people, is very damaging to society.
- oftenwrong 13y ago
  I think it fits the definition of an explosion. >Noun >explosion (plural explosions) > A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical.) > A bursting due to pressure. > The sound of an explosion. > A sudden uncontrolled increase. > A sudden outburst. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/explosion https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/explosion >ex·plo·sion >[ik-sploh-zhuhn] >noun >1. an act or instance of exploding; a violent expansion or bursting with noise, as of gunpowder or a boiler ( opposed to implosion ). >2. the noise itself: The loud explosion woke them. >3. a violent outburst, as of laughter or anger. >4. a sudden, rapid, or great increase: a population explosion. >5. the burning of the mixture of fuel and air in an internal-combustion engine. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explosion http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explosion

by craigyk 13y ago

droithomme 13y ago

According to the police report, it was HCl, toilet bowl cleaner. The HCl one is cool because if you have more than a trivial amount of foil, all the HCl reacts with it giving hydrogen gas and harmless aluminum chloride salt as the products. People keep calling this an explosion or a bomb, it's not really either. The bang comes from the plastic bottle popping from the H2 released, and the H2 recondensing with atmospheric O2 back into H2O which is the source of the "smoke" seen in videos, which is just water vapor. Those who are talking about "explosions", "bombs", "IEDs", and "incendiary devices" at the police department, and on this and other boards, are exceptionally scientifically ignorant and are not qualified at all to comment on any of this. The real solution here is for those people to take some classes and stop being ignorant and saying nonsense about "bombs" and such. Performing this reaction is not illegal either in any state's laws I've seen. That's why these cases never go to trial - the authorities try to get the kids to plead guilty as a bargain. What these kids need is a good lawyer and a counter suit for malicious prosecution. And people who don't know science need to shut up about all this and spend more time studying, listening, or just minding their own business rather than falsely claiming expertise in things they are ignorant about. Widespread ignorance about science, including among intelligent technical and business "trained" people, is very damaging to society.

oftenwrong 13y ago
I think it fits the definition of an explosion. >Noun >explosion (plural explosions) > A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical.) > A bursting due to pressure. > The sound of an explosion. > A sudden uncontrolled increase. > A sudden outburst. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/explosion https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/explosion >ex·plo·sion >[ik-sploh-zhuhn] >noun >1. an act or instance of exploding; a violent expansion or bursting with noise, as of gunpowder or a boiler ( opposed to implosion ). >2. the noise itself: The loud explosion woke them. >3. a violent outburst, as of laughter or anger. >4. a sudden, rapid, or great increase: a population explosion. >5. the burning of the mixture of fuel and air in an internal-combustion engine. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explosion http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explosion