4 ms·

If one weren't going for nostalgia, what chemicals would one put in a modern chemistry kit?

solarmist 13y ago
I think it's would be mostly the same with just a couple substitution. Even though some of the chemicals aren't used anymore and are considered harmful overall that doesn't mean they don't belong in a chemistry set for learning purposes. I'm just thinking of the first time I saw a piece of sodium dropped in water. So I can imagine that just because its a waste at the professional and real world level doesn't mean it's necessarily a waste at the toy level. But as for this specific chemical I have no idea if this is true about it or not.
- VLM 13y ago
  "a piece of magnesium dropped in water" You probably mean sodium for the first, or vinegar for the second. Although neither are harmful the way carbon tet is. As far as letting noobs play with dangerous stuff for training (or maybe Darwinian selection?) thinking back to my undergrad years the worst stuff we messed with for training purposes was various ionization states of chromium, lead, and mercury. We did at least have multiple marked hazmat buckets, didn't just flush down the drain. That was a long time ago and that kind of stuff might not be acceptable labwork in 2013. If you ever get to work with aqueous chromium some of the ionization states are beautiful. Incredibly toxic, sure, but you can see why people wanted to use them in paints.
  - timr 13y ago
    Carbon tet isn't that bad. For generations, it was in everything from refrigerators to cleaning supplies, and we all came out OK. The big risks come when you huff it, which people used to do because it gives you a high. It just also happens to melt your liver. But if your standard for danger is "unsafe when huffed", then most things in this set are pretty nasty. It's all a matter of perspective.
    - bitbiter 13y ago
      You make a good point, but there is a faint odor of survivorship bias in "we all came out OK".
VLM 13y ago
It would probably look a heck of a lot like a Thames and Kosmos product. The thing about chemistry, is people who aren't chemists think its all about randomly mixing solutions, so the more chemicals the better. The actual metric for doing interesting reactions is the number of tools, measurement devices, and apparatus you have. The actual chemicals are almost secondary. I really enjoyed my undergrad quant class. So a "kit" that would entertain me would involve a ridiculously precision balance / scale, and a spectrophotometer, and a chemistry desiccant / dehydrator vessel thingy and several burettes and graduated cylinders. And the usual array of glassware. Vacuum sep funnel, distillation set, that kind of thing. Oh and I got a huge kick out of electrochemical machinery, I mean at least a precision pH meter but more advanced stuff would be cool. I'm not asking for an NMR or a FTIR spectrometer but who knows what a devoted makerspace could pull off. Given that kind of gear listed above, I could find chemicals laying around a perfectly normal kitchen or basement to entertain me. Number and type of chemical is a bad metric. Its like saying the best CPU to program on is the one with the largest instruction set, so a IBM360 is precisely exactly 9.1244 times "better" than a PDP-8. Well it just doesn't work that way. On the other hand a metric of tools and apparatus actually is a pretty good metric.
- solarmist 13y ago
  How much of that is realistic for including in a set designed for beginners who have zero to little formal chemistry experience though and have a budget in line with that.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I see you're getting my point that sets designed for beginners are not teaching chemistry. Its like giving a kid who wants to be a chef an easy bake oven and some prepak mixes. It technically involves cooking, so ... Or giving a kid who wants to learn about computers an ipod. It does have a CPU inside, doesn't it? I basically listed what I remember of my lab drawer contents from undergrad quant class. I could see having a lot of fun with less stuff. Another aspect of hacking / startup / makerspace type activities is making a moderately crude instrument. For example a spectrophotometer with bad but usable specs could probably be made as an arduino shield using a light tight box, an incandescent bulb, a log converter feeding the A/D of the arduino, and a glass prism sitting on a servo controlled by the arduino. And some software. Or instead of burrets, a digital model using a syringe (no needle needed) and a screw and nut hooked up to a stepper motor driven by arduino. So given a syringe of 1M vinegar or whatever you can squirt out any precision volume. A PH meter shield for an arduino sounds too simple and obvious to even mention. There are more elaborate potentiometer systems where you measure the voltage required to shove a certain current thru a solution and so forth, stuff I don't remember as well. As far as budget goes, I don't think you can do "real" chemistry without at least a decent scale and some kind of volumetric measurement tool (a grad cylinder if nothing else? A set of volumetric flasks?) If you insist on "chemistry without numbers" you may as well just mix different colors of kool aide powder for all you'll learn.

I think it's would be mostly the same with just a couple substitution. Even though some of the chemicals aren't used anymore and are considered harmful overall that doesn't mean they don't belong in a chemistry set for learning purposes. I'm just thinking of the first time I saw a piece of sodium dropped in water. So I can imagine that just because its a waste at the professional and real world level doesn't mean it's necessarily a waste at the toy level. But as for this specific chemical I have no idea if this is true about it or not.

VLM 13y ago
"a piece of magnesium dropped in water" You probably mean sodium for the first, or vinegar for the second. Although neither are harmful the way carbon tet is. As far as letting noobs play with dangerous stuff for training (or maybe Darwinian selection?) thinking back to my undergrad years the worst stuff we messed with for training purposes was various ionization states of chromium, lead, and mercury. We did at least have multiple marked hazmat buckets, didn't just flush down the drain. That was a long time ago and that kind of stuff might not be acceptable labwork in 2013. If you ever get to work with aqueous chromium some of the ionization states are beautiful. Incredibly toxic, sure, but you can see why people wanted to use them in paints.
- timr 13y ago
  Carbon tet isn't that bad. For generations, it was in everything from refrigerators to cleaning supplies, and we all came out OK. The big risks come when you huff it, which people used to do because it gives you a high. It just also happens to melt your liver. But if your standard for danger is "unsafe when huffed", then most things in this set are pretty nasty. It's all a matter of perspective.
  - bitbiter 13y ago
    You make a good point, but there is a faint odor of survivorship bias in "we all came out OK".

VLM 13y ago

It would probably look a heck of a lot like a Thames and Kosmos product. The thing about chemistry, is people who aren't chemists think its all about randomly mixing solutions, so the more chemicals the better. The actual metric for doing interesting reactions is the number of tools, measurement devices, and apparatus you have. The actual chemicals are almost secondary. I really enjoyed my undergrad quant class. So a "kit" that would entertain me would involve a ridiculously precision balance / scale, and a spectrophotometer, and a chemistry desiccant / dehydrator vessel thingy and several burettes and graduated cylinders. And the usual array of glassware. Vacuum sep funnel, distillation set, that kind of thing. Oh and I got a huge kick out of electrochemical machinery, I mean at least a precision pH meter but more advanced stuff would be cool. I'm not asking for an NMR or a FTIR spectrometer but who knows what a devoted makerspace could pull off. Given that kind of gear listed above, I could find chemicals laying around a perfectly normal kitchen or basement to entertain me. Number and type of chemical is a bad metric. Its like saying the best CPU to program on is the one with the largest instruction set, so a IBM360 is precisely exactly 9.1244 times "better" than a PDP-8. Well it just doesn't work that way. On the other hand a metric of tools and apparatus actually is a pretty good metric.

solarmist 13y ago
How much of that is realistic for including in a set designed for beginners who have zero to little formal chemistry experience though and have a budget in line with that.
- VLM 13y ago
  I see you're getting my point that sets designed for beginners are not teaching chemistry. Its like giving a kid who wants to be a chef an easy bake oven and some prepak mixes. It technically involves cooking, so ... Or giving a kid who wants to learn about computers an ipod. It does have a CPU inside, doesn't it? I basically listed what I remember of my lab drawer contents from undergrad quant class. I could see having a lot of fun with less stuff. Another aspect of hacking / startup / makerspace type activities is making a moderately crude instrument. For example a spectrophotometer with bad but usable specs could probably be made as an arduino shield using a light tight box, an incandescent bulb, a log converter feeding the A/D of the arduino, and a glass prism sitting on a servo controlled by the arduino. And some software. Or instead of burrets, a digital model using a syringe (no needle needed) and a screw and nut hooked up to a stepper motor driven by arduino. So given a syringe of 1M vinegar or whatever you can squirt out any precision volume. A PH meter shield for an arduino sounds too simple and obvious to even mention. There are more elaborate potentiometer systems where you measure the voltage required to shove a certain current thru a solution and so forth, stuff I don't remember as well. As far as budget goes, I don't think you can do "real" chemistry without at least a decent scale and some kind of volumetric measurement tool (a grad cylinder if nothing else? A set of volumetric flasks?) If you insist on "chemistry without numbers" you may as well just mix different colors of kool aide powder for all you'll learn.