4. R&R-Chemistry
R&R-Lighting by Andrew Guthrie-Dow
I feel in an academic mood today, which is not like me, so unless I’m coming-down with something, I’m going to “do” chemistry seriously and with respect, at least that’s the current plan. Let’s first “attack” the subject from a historical perspective. The whole world around us is made-up of chemicals; rocks, trees, the air we breathe, and also us. However, it’s only been in the last few centuries, and in particular the nineteenth, that (in the main part) we’ve understood them deeply from a scientific stand-point – atoms, molecules, compounds, reactions etc. In fact, chemistry these days is often seen as a “done-deal”, a subject with few if any surprises left, perhaps with the exception of bio-chemistry.
This is a bit sad as I quite like the idea of alchemists in the middle-ages, hidden away in their basements trying to convert base metals to gold or find the elixir-of-life. Lack-of-success is never a deterrent to the committed, so it was only with modern insights that these pursuits faded-away. There were spin-off successes however; the discovery of phosphorous from boiling-off urine (sounds fun), and of all things, porcelain in the west. This was discovered by Johann-Friedrich-Böttger and Ehrenfried-Walther-von-Tschirnhaus (two names to conjure with), alchemists to August-II-of-Saxony (Augustus-the-Strong). OK, that’s enough history.
Now let’s “do” chemistry a little less seriously, starting with my personal-efforts to get to grips with it. Being a logical sort of person, I assumed chemistry to be logical, like mathematics or physics. It aint; at least not at school level. There I was in a whitish lab coat with holes burnt in it from previous contacts with strong acids and alkalis, trying to make some goddam-substance from some other goddam-substance, guided only by notes stapled together. I had no real idea of what I was doing or why, and quickly came to the understanding just get to the end, collect the credits, and forget about the whole ghastly three-hours-of hell-until the next time.
This actually was a pretty good strategy, but a dangerous one. My first “minor” mistake was down to a certain sloppiness in reading the notes. While turning the pages I inadvertently skipped a whole sheet. So instead of a reaction followed by a filtration followed by another reaction, the new page had me warming the test-tube to make it go a little faster. Unfortunately, what was in the test-tube was a volatile mixture of solvent and chemical which immediately boiled explosively. This then ejected the whole liquid contents forming an arc of flame as the Bunsen-burner ignited it. This in turn set fire to the polish of the lab-desk, and a full-blown emergency ensued with fire-alarms going-off and extinguishers being used to douse the flames. There was nothing about this in the notes.
My second “minor” mistake was to join that small club of (live) chemists who have successfully “drunk-from-a-pipette”. For those unfortunate-enough not to have encountered a pipette, let alone used one, they are a fiendish piece of kit; a thin glass tube, pointed at one end, with an enormous sausage like bulge in the middle. The idea, and I’m not making this up, is to dip the pointed end into some liquid (acid, alkali, deadly carcinogenic poison or the like), suck on the other end to fill the sausage with the aforesaid liquid. The chemist can then cover the non-pointy-end with their finger causing a vacuum-like seal, so the liquid in the sausage and the whole pipette can be moved over a flask or test-tube, the finger removed, and the liquid released. What could possibly go wrong?
Here we have to go to the works of Linus-Pauline, the Nobel-prize-winning-chemist and author of “Lab-Laughs-for-Chemists”, a compendium of practical-jokes for the practitioners of the subject. There are two main ways of achieving drinking-from-a-pipette. The first is to have too little liquid to suck from, which when you get to the bottom of it, an air bubble rushes up the tube and pushes some all the way into your mouth. I succumbed to the second route, which because you can’t see how full the sausage-section is, you continue to suck all the way to the top and out.
Usually when this happens it causes mild embarrassment as the liquid involved is some dilute sweet tasting Ester which is easily washed out by a mouth-full of water. Being me, this was not the case. Instead, for some reason, I seem to remember it was concentrated-Sulphuric-acid or similar. Whatever it was, there was an immediate chemical-reaction between it and my teeth, which began to effervesce as when you drop an indigestion-tablet into a glass of water. It was a strange sensation, and one I thought I should probably do something about quite-quickly, which I did. I spat it out immediately and rushed to the tap for a rinse, only to be intercepted by the chemistry-teacher who wanted to know why I was spitting in his lab. There’s true concern for you.
While were on the subject of chemical-practical-jokes, I must mention Nitrogen-Triiodide and my college-mate, Keith. When he was in the 6th form, which for Americans is the 10th grade, he and others went on a Nitrogen-Triiodide spree. This chemical is a contact-explosive but can be dissolved in liquids such as Diethyl-Ether, which gives it a certain stability. A dropper can be used to spread small amounts on toilet-seats, locks, glasses etc where the Ether quickly evaporates leaving the triiodide “primed”. When an unfortunate bum or finger contacts it, then “BAM”, a large noise and mini-explosion. Pretty-funny, eh?
Well not quite. While stoned he spilt a whole bottle of it all over his jeans, which dried in seconds. The slightest movement then caused a mini-explosion whichever muscle he used. He said it took him two hours to remove his jeans, with explosions occurring at every twitch-and-turn, leaving his crutch and legs severely bruised. I know I go on about not doing things like driving or flying aircraft when stoned, and handling explosives should be added to this list.
And while we’re on the subject of explosives, let me mention a very pleasant summer afternoon I spent discussing the supply-chain issues of one of our customers with my then business-partner. From the grass outside came the unmistakable summer-sound of minor-explosions and smell of sulphur as the sone of my business-partner and his mate detonated home-made explosives on the lawn. I mentioned they might like trying to make Nitro-Glycerine for a change; far stronger and less smell than gun-powder.
Although easy to make, the only downside is that has a tendency to go-off on its own, taking fingers, legs and arms with it. This should not be a problem for the modern enlightened family. One approach is to drop lots of sprogs, so that if a couple are disintegrated by home-made high-explosives, there’s always a few-left to take their place. Another is to take extreme care, and perhaps convert the Nitro-Glycerine into Dynamite as Albert-Nobel did. Grudgingly, I suppose you could just ban them from experimenting with explosives altogether, but I think this is a bit harsh and stifles the spirit of youthful scientific enquiry.
Let’s now “attack” chemistry from a “fun” perspective, starting with its influence on the toy-market. For many the 50’s was the golden-era of optimism in the West, and toys reflected this. In particular we must visit the offerings of the “Whammo” toy company of Independence-Missouri at that time, now sadly no-longer trading after a spate of spiteful lawsuits. Alongside their wide-range of Mercury-based toys such as the Magic-Mercury-Mazes, who can forget their educational-series on science with boxed-sets with titles such as “Rockets and Rocket-Fuel”, “The-Wonders-of-Radioactivity”, and of course, “Thallium-and-the-Heavy-Metals”.
While we’re on the subject of Thallium it reminds me of one of England’s most notorious serial-killers, Graham-Young. Not content with poisoning his entire family with the aforementioned element at the age of fourteen, after being released from Broadmoor, the top-security mental-hospital, he successfully killed two workmates. His modus-operandi was to lace a pot-of-tea before serving it. This led to the “joke” that went around other inmates of Broadmoor at that time that if they didn’t behave themselves, they would let Graham make the tea. I assume he was also the inspiration for Putin’s assassins who poisoned Alexander-Litvinenko with radioactive Polonium-210, by slipping it into his tea.
Radioactivity is a recurring theme in chemistry, and one I think that falls into two camps; the ones that think the dangers of it are somewhat overblown, and the rest of us. I do have a soft-spot though for the true-believers, like Marie-Curie herself, who nonetheless succumbed to aplastic-pernicious-anaemia caused by her researches. She was not on her own though, and I must mention Dr. Sabin-Arnold-von-Sochocky, the inventor of Radium-dial-paint, who also snuffed-it from the same illness despite thirteen blood transfusions. Apparently, he was only number sixteen to die due to his invention.
As we’re on the subject of true-believers, we must mention the chemist Thomas-Midgley-Jr. who arguably contributed to thousands of people’s death, including his own. Not content with developing Tetraethyl-Lead as a petrol-additive to prevent “engine-knocking” (premature-ignition), he also introduced the world to Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). His reign-of-terror only ended when his last invention, a contraption to get him in-and-out of bed after contracting polio, strangled him.
Another set of true-believers were the Nazis. Nothing chemical-wise was beyond utilization in their bid for world domination. Two ideas though, “bit-back”. The first was to use Hydrazine-Hydrate-in-Methanol in combination with concentrated Hydrogen-Peroxide to power the ME-163-Komet rocket-plane. Though incredibly fast and manoeuvrable, its fuel had the nasty habit of dissolving its pilots, as was the case for the unfortunate Josef-Pöhs. By the sound of it they had to suck him out of the aircraft after a fuel-spill during landing. Sad. Then there was Chlorine-Trifluoride which is ranked as one of the five most dangerous chemicals on the planet. Unfortunately, I don’t have the incident-details which eventually-caused the Nazis to refrain in its use, but it must have been “a cracker”.
Getting back to “fun” we can’t pass the opportunity to celebrate chemistry’s central position in recreational-drugs. This used to be rather haphazard, but now novel and intriguing ones can be synthesized by the gifted amateur rather than needing a research-team. Another advantage of the amateur approach is that you can ditch all those cumbersome health-and-safety regulations and just “go-for-it”. Any hazardous waste can simply be dumped in the nearest stream or left in plastic drums for the next occupant of the industrial-site to discover and dispose of.
Also fume-cupboards and acid-cleansing-baths are not required as the amateur-chemist can simply don sub-aqua breathing-kit while the Ritter and similar reactions are occurring. The result is cheap and quickly-synthesized Ecstasy/LSD suitable for domestic and world-wide-markets. A little caution is advised however; it just doesn’t look cool when the police raid an isolated Dutch farm-building due to a report of a foul-smell, to find the decomposing bodies of the two amateur-chemists who were making a batch of “E”, still wearing their breathing-masks.
Running out of “fun” chemistry-subjects, so let’s end with fireworks. These have been delighting and simultaneously maiming people for hundreds of years. My exposure to this dichotomy came from the Netherlands when every year the whole country goes collectively insane and decides to blow-up everything on new-year’s-eve. There has been a crack-down on illegal-and-dangerous fireworks (for God’s sake, which fireworks are intrinsically safe?), which inevitably has led to smuggling. This was brought home to me several years ago when crossing the Belgium/Dutch border in a car. We were stopped and the car searched. “Drugs?” I asked; “No”. “Guns?” I asked; “No”. “What then?” I asked; “Fireworks”. Sodding fireworks? Yes, sodding fireworks.
The new-year’s firework-show is spectacular though, particularly if you get the chance to be on a rooftop in Amsterdam. The whole sky is lit up with rockets and exploding mortar-bombs, and the smell of gunpowder envelopes the city. For some it’s the ideal time to review one’s life, identify changes and plot a better life-path for the new year. Free-will at its best. Did this work for me? Of-course sodding-not. Despite the small amount of influence free-will can exert on our lives, the grim reality is that the new year will be much the same as the old one; the same ups, the same downs, and the same boring-bits in-between.
So, what have I learnt from chemistry? I think hard and the same stupid thought just keeps re-entering my brain. As we arrived at Canterbury’s southern railway station for the first time, next to it was an abandoned nightclub, with its paint-peeling and welcoming sign decomposing. On the side-wall was a mural with the club’s name; “Chemistry”. And in case you think the double-entendre was unintentional, also on the mural was a lab-coated-arm warming one of those cone-shaped flasks in a Bunsen-burner. Sometimes you have to be in complete awe of genius, absolute genius.