[Fedora]

BTW here's a question: how come kids who can't pass chemistry class still seem to be able to figure out how to blow stuff up by mixing stuff they're not supposed to? I've noticed that in my chem classes. . .

[Lil'freeper]

LOL, the only people who blew stuff up was us teachers. We tried to make pyrotechnics a weekly event. Once, we found a cansiter with a bit of O₂ left in it. We mixed it with a bit of H₂ in some balloons (with some iron filings for a nice sparkley effect). Made a heck of a boom. The windows rattled. The students were impressed. The poor headmaster didn't think it was so great- he thought something terrible had happened.

[Lil'freeper]

Since I'm reminiscing... There was this one kid. Very nice, he'll make a great salesman but boy he was dense.

We were doing an ionic substitution lab: mix two chemicals and something interesting happens. Sometimes you get a bubbly gas, sometimes it makes a pretty colored solid. (Your business partner can elaborate further.) Vey fun.

The instructions were to test each chemical against every other chemical, one pairing at a time. We did all this "microscale" using a few drops of chemical in a special plate that has little depressions in it. Instead of setting up a grid and testing one combination in each depression, this kid put *all* the chemicals in the same depression. It made a nasty mess. I coulda boxed his ears.

I could have boxed his mother's ears when she called me up to complain that the lab was too hard.