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Boy Chemist
or Fire, Noise, Smells and Smoke

by Ed Thelen - a Dilbert clone

Just for fun :-))

"Mad Science" by Theodore Gray http://graysci.com/ http://periodictable.com/Posters/index.madscience.html

At some tender age, my parents gave me a chemistry set.

That was fun but somewhat limited -
I think I used all the chemicals in a few days -
Started going to the local drugstore - a lot -
- a pound of "Flowers of Sulfur"
- a way too large mortar and pestle
- 1/4 pound iodine crystals
...
Fire, the famous Bunsen burner, was always a problem. Our house was not equipped with gas - and my $0.10/week allowance (when granted) did not go far - so I "borrowed" some of my father's "Paul Bunyan" hair oil and used that (burning from a wick) to heat test tubes. Soon my father noticed the "leakage" from his bottle - and after inquiries about the missing hair oil, bought me a bottle.

Fire, test tubes, boiling (and "bumping") - water on a small scale does not boil smoothly - small quantities super-heat, and "bump" (explode). I learned about that - I heard that butyric acid stinks, like vomit - obviously I must make some - boil sulfuric acid and butter in a test tube was the recipe - mix, heat, and boil
A sudden sharp noise - test tube knocked down out of test tube holder- stinky contents of test tube flies up in opposite direction - wetting the ceiling of my room.
For several days after that I slept in the living room until the stink abated somewhat -

CASH, or lack thereof, after failing at
- bowling alley pin boy - mother heard they sold liquor and wouldn't let me go again
- a paper route (the route owner did the collections and kept most money)
- magazine subscriptions (the neighbors got tired of seeing me)
I started baby sitting - a steady income :-))

With cash, and library chemistry books, my horizons expanded. Ah fire works,
- red (strontium) fire, yellow (sodium) fire, violet (potassium) fire
- I gave colored fire demos to the neighbors.
and "Gun Powder" - classical potassium nitrate, sulfur, charcoal :-))
- I never was patient enough to do the proper grinding, so got "Rocket Powder" ;-))

OK - "Rocket Powder" goes to rockets. Found a number expended 12 gauge shot gun shells, knocked out the expended primers, which left a nice nozzle, Scotch Tape fins, and we had flying shotgun shells all over the neighborhood :-))
Tolerant neighbors, and life is good ;-))

And a floor sprinkled with drying Nitrogen Iodide ;-))
- my poor long suffering mother !!
You walk into my room, - snap, crackle, pop under foot - and sweeping is "interesting" ;-))

I tended to put surplus or poor rocket powders and fires into a can 3" diameter 8" tall can. When it got full I took it out into the back yard, and lit it - there was a bit of noise, and a huge cloud of evil looking smoke, like a mushroom cloud. My mother got quite excited, but Mrs. Lehman from next door said that was all right. "Boys will be boys."

Oh - gee -
Science Fair to be in the Twin Cities. I heard folks could make rayon. Cellulose does not dissolve in many things, but - will in a mixture of ammonia, lye and copper sulfate. see here. Pushing the mixture out through a little nozzle into dilute sulfuric acid neutralizes the lye and the cellulose forms a weak wet thread. Just drying the wet thread gives a very stiff brittle thread, won't bend, breaks. My demo/display did not win any prizes or notice - but I found a much larger world of really talented informed high school "chemists". The winner gave a lengthy description how he synthesized vitamin K. The Science Fair was a real eye-opener !!
- I later heard that if the weak wet thread is properly stretched, "molecules" get aligned and a much more useful thread can be produced.

Some excitements while doing the above project:

• Sucked on a tube to get a syphon going
  - got some of that cuprammonium lye mixture in my mouth
  - - couldn't taste anything for weeks -
• Wanted to heat the cuprammonium gently in an Erlenmeyer Flask
  - made a paraffin wax bath - on an electric heater on the front porch
  - cuprammonium suddenly boiled over into the paraffin wax bath
  - massive boiling in pariffin causes over flow onto the hot coils of the stove
  - pariffin catches fire and runs down the porch

Raising kids can be interesting - mine could have been worse - me -

More library chemistry books -
should I try for nitroglycerine?
- got a pound of concentrated sulfuric acid
- and a pound of concentrated nitric acid
all from that same tolerant drug store :-))
- but the books said the reaction was exothermic, gets hot -
- decided to keep my fingers and face and do other things
I wonder what my mother did with all those hot chemicals??

---

I took Inorganic Chemistry in college
- aced the class work
- did miserably in the lab - as did everyone else -
- - we figured someone screwed up the "unknown" solutions, never got approved results
heard that the only employer of chemists was DuPont - that did not seem an economically wise course.
Also heard Organic Chemistry - next in sequence - was TOUGH - lots of memorization :-((
- decided that there must be other things to do - but what?????

Drifted aimlessly for several years - During my senior year of engineering school, I met digital computers - AH the lost is found :-)) Just wonderful to get pay for play !! How lucky can you get ??

by Ed Thelen