Another tale from when I was in the 8th grade. After I recovered from my broken arm (blogged about in an earlier post) and the accompanying humbleness, I had the opportunity to be involved in a spectacular experiment.
We were in Science class one day, reading about atoms and molecules and elements and how things combined to make other things. Our teacher was Mrs. Seth, who was from India and wore a sari, and had a colored dot on her forehead, which I thought was so cool because I'd never had a teacher from another country.
Anyway, I read how common table salt, sodium chloride, was the combination of two dangerous elements - sodium, which reacts violently with water, and chlorine, which is a deadly gas. I was curious about sodium, a metal, and what it would do if put in water. We happened to have some sodium metal in a small can in our classroom.
I asked Mrs. Seth what would happen if we put some of the sodium in a beaker of water.
She asked in reply, "What do you think it would do?"
"I dunno," I said. "Bubble a lot? Maybe blow up like a firecracker? Can we try it?"
"Outside, boys," she said.
"Really? We can try it?" My friends and I perked up on what had been, up to this point, a damp and dreary day.
She gave us permission to go outside with the sodium and a metal wastebasket. At times she didn't seem to care for us boys, but I think having us take a metal container rather than a glass beaker meant that she knew something would happen, perhaps beyond our expectations.
We went out to the asphalt blacktop that served as a playground during the week and a parking lot on the weekend. We filled the wastebasket about a fourth of the way up with water and set it down. Everybody in class was looking out the window, watching our experiment.
"How much sodium should we use?" somebody asked. The can had all kinds of warnings on it. Inside, in a clear oily-looking liquid, was a chunk of what looked like a rock. Actually, there were two chunks, and a few little bits of "rock."
"How about the smaller chunk? If it doesn't do much, we'll use the big chunk."
That seemed reasonable. So we got the small chunk out, plus a few of the smaller bits, and closed the lid on the can.
Taking the sodium over to the wastebasket, we tossed it in and stepped back.
Suddenly, there was a fizzing and hissing sound, which was probably one of the smaller bits.
"Run!" I yelled (actually I think we all yelled it). And we took off in all directions to get away from the wastebasket.
WHAAHHBOOOMM!!! We could feel the explosion.
I turned around to see water rocketing up into the sky, then cascading down around the wastebasket.We were in Science class one day, reading about atoms and molecules and elements and how things combined to make other things. Our teacher was Mrs. Seth, who was from India and wore a sari, and had a colored dot on her forehead, which I thought was so cool because I'd never had a teacher from another country.
Anyway, I read how common table salt, sodium chloride, was the combination of two dangerous elements - sodium, which reacts violently with water, and chlorine, which is a deadly gas. I was curious about sodium, a metal, and what it would do if put in water. We happened to have some sodium metal in a small can in our classroom.
I asked Mrs. Seth what would happen if we put some of the sodium in a beaker of water.
She asked in reply, "What do you think it would do?"
"I dunno," I said. "Bubble a lot? Maybe blow up like a firecracker? Can we try it?"
"Outside, boys," she said.
"Really? We can try it?" My friends and I perked up on what had been, up to this point, a damp and dreary day.
She gave us permission to go outside with the sodium and a metal wastebasket. At times she didn't seem to care for us boys, but I think having us take a metal container rather than a glass beaker meant that she knew something would happen, perhaps beyond our expectations.
We went out to the asphalt blacktop that served as a playground during the week and a parking lot on the weekend. We filled the wastebasket about a fourth of the way up with water and set it down. Everybody in class was looking out the window, watching our experiment.
"How much sodium should we use?" somebody asked. The can had all kinds of warnings on it. Inside, in a clear oily-looking liquid, was a chunk of what looked like a rock. Actually, there were two chunks, and a few little bits of "rock."
"How about the smaller chunk? If it doesn't do much, we'll use the big chunk."
That seemed reasonable. So we got the small chunk out, plus a few of the smaller bits, and closed the lid on the can.
Taking the sodium over to the wastebasket, we tossed it in and stepped back.
Suddenly, there was a fizzing and hissing sound, which was probably one of the smaller bits.
"Run!" I yelled (actually I think we all yelled it). And we took off in all directions to get away from the wastebasket.
WHAAHHBOOOMM!!! We could feel the explosion.
We waited a little bit, and then nervously approached ground zero. When we got there, not only was the wastebasket empty, but it was dry, too. We had blown every bit of water out of it!
Of course, we tried to swagger as we went back to the classroom. However, I don't think any of us asked to do any non-scheduled experiments again that year.
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