I learned how to make nitrogen triiodide in the basement, experimenting with my chemistry set. When the stuff dries out, it is extremely sensitive. Just touch it and it bursts into flame or explodes if anything is compressing it.
I scattered little particles of it on the high school stairwell, with its metal treads. When it dried out, it made very satisfying bangs and pops when the students came bursting down the stairwell to their next classes. Great excitement was had by all!
I won’t explain how to make it, but it’s pretty simple to do.
But, that was then, and this is now.
So we do not need future Scientists for knowledge in explosives. We do not need enchanted minds to further the explosive field and we know all there is to know about explosives. I doubt that! This Girl was just using her mind and knowledge to find more knowledge and was punished for it!
Liberals are quick to say expand the mind of youth but very fast to quash that same mind when it does not fit their PC world.
“But, that was then, and this is now.”
There is no statute of limitations for terrorism.
I bought the instructions from the back pages of Popular Science. The stuff is so sensitive that it went off with a loud bang on the back porch when the front door blew shut! That was very cool stuff.
Also liked the exothermic reaction of glycerine and potassium permanganate. At first I thought it failed, so I tossed it in the HS lab trash. Big mistake! In a few minutes, the entire wastebasket was flaming. Great excitement, indeed.
The last step in that experiment was to "wash" the Silver Acetylide precipitate with Nitric Acid -- which, of course, destroyed the material.
The brightest students recognized that, if you didn't perform that last step, you had a silvery powder suspended in water that was perfectly safe and quiet -- as long as it stayed wet... '-)