You might be forgiven for thinking that Hogg was the only character in my high school chemistry class. Indeed, sometimes I was forced to make my own entertainment: such as the time I poured a glass of water over the housemistress’ head. From two floors up. Or set fire—but no. I’ll leave that one for later.
High school physics experiment
There was, in fact, a whole regiment of patsies that could be relied upon to relieve the routine of studying for ‘O’ Level. And some of them managed to do it from behind a wall or two…
One fine day we traipsed into the chemistry lab to be given a list of instructions, complete with boxes for us to write down our observations. It was meant to be some sort of test; and just so that there could be no cheating, the other top chemistry set was sitting it simultaneously.
The first task was to take a set amount of chalk, and heat it over a bunsen. Then we were to let the powder cool, weigh that, then transfer it to a watchglass and add water. Finally we had to measure the pH of the suspension and figure out what just happened. Something like that, anyway.
We had instructions. Clear and and detailed instructions. We heated up the chalk. We (eventually) transferred the resulting powder to watch glass. We read the bit where the instructions said ‘holding it in your hand, add three drops of water’. And because we were doing this (all forty or so of us between two classes) simultaneously, the scream came at the precise moment we were dripping water onto the innocuous-looking powder in a watchglass.
Because some berk next door (and I know who it was was but I’m not going to embarrass him, on the off-chance he might track me down after 25 years) had taken the instructions too literally: tipped the powder directly into his hand and added water to that. The exothermic reaction alone must have hurt; the alkali burning a hole in his hand did the rest.
CaO (s) + H2O (l) ⇔ Ca(OH)2 (aq) (ΔHr = −63.7 kJ mol-1)
Hahahaha! (Laughed the girl who was too scared to turn on the bunser burner and always found an excuse to make her lab partner do it. “I’ll get the glassware, why don’t you turn on the burner in the mean time, okay?”)
Ah, I guess that was just chalked up to experience.
And the person’s name was Grant, wasn’t it?
Ouch!!
Interestingly, there’s now a Facebook conversation about this very incident, as a chap in the class where this happened ‘friended’ me over the weekend. He remembers it being the same person (no, Bob. Their initials are ‘SR’) but reckons the teacher gave him (SR that is, not my other friend) permission to do that. I wonder if the story has got a bit embellished somewhere, because not even our teachers were that gung-ho.
I guess that’s a chemistry lesson he won’t forget, maybe that’s what the teacher aimed at? (Or maybe s/he just had had one glass of water too many poured over his/her head :))
Does the chap in the picture have writer’s block? Because he looks like he’s being attacked by a Biro.
It’s the write stuff.
If only he had used blackboard chalk instead!
Ah. Calcium hydroxide. If I remember my high school chemistry properly, that fits into the category of “strong bases”. ;)
anything ‘hydroxide’ is going to hurt…
Probably not one that’s mostly insoluble, like cobalt (II) or nickel (II) hydroxides.
Fucking pedant.
Happy to oblige :)
Hee. This is why I love scientists. I feel at home around them.
You know, Ken could be making that up completely and I’d never know. Cobalt(II) hydroxide indeed. Probably invented by that guy with the big biro. ;)
Oh, is this a ‘reviewer comment’?!
I used to be a chemistry geek, but yes, I could be making it up entirely. If you prefer, I could reference cobaltous and nickelous hydroxides, the older nomenclature frowned upon by IUPAC.
Come to think of it, both iron(II) and iron(III) hydroxides (ferrous and ferric,respectively, for old-timers) should be pretty insoluble.
Oh, is this a ‘reviewer comment’?!
No, it’s an “F1000 Associate Faculty Member” comment.
Oh, did I say that out loud? So sorry. ;)
Oh, are you now an f1000.com associate Faculty Member, Richard? I never would have known! Well done!
I’m expecting you to Tweet about it now, you know.
Now there’s a novel idea.