DonB Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Can't see this happening at our local Comprehensive! http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Forces-and-Motion-Assembly-allride-tour-2011.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foulounoux Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Maybe not But back in the early 80's we did have a good chemistry teacher who demonstrated vigorous thermal oxidation/reduction reactions by using Iron Oxide and another element lit by a Magnesium taper. The 2 builders we borrowed the lighter from though the experiment was the Magnesium flare until they stepped too close and bang !!! I now define that as the BHS era - Before Health and Safety! Same teacher also demonstrated distillation - unfortunately we used rubber hose to link some of the glassware together - results rubber tasting spirit - it didn't catch on Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 ....Same teacher also demonstrated distillation - unfortunately we used rubber hose to link some of the glassware together - results rubber tasting spirit - it didn't catch on Ah, but the idea of making your own mega-strength poitin still stayed in the memory! Thash the shpiritsh.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Deltic Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Maybe not But back in the early 80's we did have a good chemistry teacher who demonstrated vigorous thermal oxidation/reduction reactions by using Iron Oxide and another element lit by a Magnesium taper. The 2 builders we borrowed the lighter from though the experiment was the Magnesium flare until they stepped too close and bang !!! I now define that as the BHS era - Before Health and Safety! Same teacher also demonstrated distillation - unfortunately we used rubber hose to link some of the glassware together - results rubber tasting spirit - it didn't catch on I think the other element would have been Aluminium, setting off a thermite reaction where the aluminium swipes the iron's oxygen molecules, the resulting fracas leaving the iron molten. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseboy72 Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Back in the 80s, we had a chemistry teacher who managed to coat the inside of a brand new fume cabinet with silver when an experiment got a bit out of hand... We also had a physics teacher who loved nothing better than having the whole class hold hands, with the first person in the chain touching the Van de Graaf generator and the last person with a puddle of spirit or ether in their hand. He would then form the last link and POOF ! the flame would ignite! He also used to bring in radioactive wartime aircraft gauges (The glowing paint was the radioactive bit). Favorite would be while learning to stick weld. We had to wear overalls with big belts and metal buckles. Clamp the earth to the metal edge of the bench and wait until your "mate" was bent over the desk. Reach in with the welder and a quick dab was enough to weld them to the bench Lets not mention archery and firing arrows at each other from one end of the sports field to the other... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted April 8, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 8, 2011 Nitrogen tri-iodide was another good one, explosive decomposition on the slightest touch when dry. See it here . We put a trail of blobs across the floor of the lab and left it to dry. Chemistry teacher was not amused by the bangs when the cleaner was sweeping up afterwards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Emily Posted April 9, 2011 Share Posted April 9, 2011 My A-level Chemistry teacher demonstrated organic chemistry with a beer brewing practical that reached fruition on the last day of term. All the sixth formers (and the teachers) went home sloshed that afternoon! Other memorable school chemistry lessons included detonating a hydrogen/oxygen mix in a large two gallon plastic container by means of a spark plug and a car battery on the end of long wires. Then there was always the Potassium in the large tub of water for run-of-the-mill entertainment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastwestdivide Posted April 9, 2011 Share Posted April 9, 2011 Physics: calculate the speed of an airgun pellet through two bits of tinfoil a metre apart connected to the start and stop of an electronic timer. All I learnt from that was: Don't forget to put something there to stop the pellet embedding itself in the lab door. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted April 9, 2011 Share Posted April 9, 2011 My year had to make do with stink bombs in the lab. They were crude, but pretty effective. I've been pretty keen on veg curries since then, and have been making my own bombs. Naturally. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 Physics: calculate the speed of an airgun pellet through two bits of tinfoil a metre apart connected to the start and stop of an electronic timer. All I learnt from that was: Don't forget to put something there to stop the pellet embedding itself in the lab door. We had an evenings demonstration on explosives at Uppingham college. I remember the lecturer getting half a dozen 5mm ply 6" squares, he spaced them apart with 1" blocks so they were like slices of toast in a toast rack. He then got an old flintlock rifle, loaded a bit of black powder and cotton wadding, finally loaded with a simple wax candle. He then fired the wax candle at the plywood sheets, the candle went clean through the first 3 sheets of ply, made a mess of the 4th one and made a serious dent in the 5th sheet. Plenty of other entertaining experiments with tin can rockets and other explosives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted April 10, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 10, 2011 As well as making Tri Nitro benzene (not too far removed from TNT) and watering the blackberry bushes with various cyanide residues (the blackberries came on a treat) our teacher got us interested in Nuclear chemistry by telling us how to make A bombs and H bombs (Not common knowledge in the late 60's. he'd worked at Winscale and also told us the inside story of the Winscale fire to get us interested in crystalline forms (I can't remember the cehnical term this far on) All stuff that wasn't wasy to come by but certainly got us interested in the subject. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noiseboy72 Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 We had an evenings demonstration on explosives at Uppingham college. I remember the lecturer getting half a dozen 5mm ply 6" squares, he spaced them apart with 1" blocks so they were like slices of toast in a toast rack. He then got an old flintlock rifle, loaded a bit of black powder and cotton wadding, finally loaded with a simple wax candle. He then fired the wax candle at the plywood sheets, the candle went clean through the first 3 sheets of ply, made a mess of the 4th one and made a serious dent in the 5th sheet. Plenty of other entertaining experiments with tin can rockets and other explosives. I did the Video for the100th birthday celebratory lecture for this chap - Colonel BD Shaw at Nottingham University. It was more than 10 years ago now. His assistant was a neighbour of mine called Jim Gamble (Anyone into Meccano will know his name !) and he perfomed the famous candle through an oak door demonstration. I gather he gave the lecture more than 1600 times from the 30's through to the 90's They lit the 100 candles on the cake with an impregnated string, so they all lit at the same time. And yes, he managed to blow them all out in 1 go ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 Not school, but at Imperial College we had demonstrations of linear motors br Professor Eric Laithwaite. These involved large sheets of metal flying about at great speed and were always well attended. The standing joke was that he had to warn Battersea Power Station beforehand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Laithwaite Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Welly Posted April 10, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 10, 2011 No Physics teacher in the world will ever do this! Spectacular and VERY dangerous! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooUK Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 Related to the candle above: part of my firework safety training every autumn is a demonstration of what happens if you put half inch chipboard over the end of a 2.5in shell tube. Believe me, I'm very careful about putting myself in that position when firing! At school we went for things like chucking sodium into a bath of water. I also went to London for a lecture that basically consisted of the lecturer blowing things up is lots of different ways. Digestive biscuits soaked in liquid oxygen was my favourite... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard320 Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 Oh man, now you're dragging up the memories. Back when schools didn't coddle the kids. My Chemistry teacher was uh, eccentric, I guess. He liked to play with Sodium in water. Demonstrated some sort of smoke-making liquid used by magicians, then waved it under the recently-installed smoke detector to see if it could read that kind of smoke....it didn't. He also had this cask that must have held 2 liters of Mercury. He liked to use it for demonstrations about density. He'd borrow a lead brick from the Physics teacher and show us how the lead just bobbed around in the Mercury. He put something - maybe just food coloring, but who knew with him - that turned his coffee olive green. He has some special beakers that were narrower than usual that he used as a coffee mug. He also taught us about thermite- iron filings with aluminum mixed in, and ignited with a phosphorous fuse, which yielded molten iron in a flash. Then he told us how some chemistry students at San Francisco State mixed up several baggies full, went down to the cable car turntable, and welded a cable car to it. They had to shut down the line until maintenance crews got there with torches to cut the car free. Imagine the outrage today if a teacher planted that idea in a child's head! Later on, in college, there was some section on molecular size, maybe osmosis, something I forget now, but we calculated the rate of loss of hydrogen in latex balloons. And lit a few balloons to watch the fireball. For the grand finale, we worked the equation backwards to figure out how big we'd need to make the balloon so that enough hydrogen would leak out so the balloon would drop in approximately one hour. At the appointed time, dozens of balloons were inflated to spec and set loose, where they rested on the ceiling. It was designed so that they would start falling in the middle of the next lecturer. Back to High School: on rainy days, they'd put us in the gym and we'd play a game known as Slaughterball. I doubt there were really any rules. Essentially, it was to dodge volleyballs and soccer balls until you could catch one, then look for someone on the opposing side who wasn't paying attention and try to brain him with it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 .....watering the blackberry bushes with various cyanide residues (the blackberries came on a treat) .... Ah, but did anyone actually eat the blackberries? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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