"the dog's nuts of the periodic table"

Post #266,972 by rcareaga 9/7/06 8:13:57 PM Reply	"the dog's nuts of the periodic table" Google video of crazed Englishmen dropping various alkali metals into water ("think of a hand grenade in a bathtub." "Now think of a depth charge in a bathtub"). [link\|http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-2134266654801392897\|http://video.google....34266654801392897] Fun. reactively, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #266,975 by Another Scott 9/7/06 9:14:28 PM Reply	Zooks! That's a very nice clip.
Post #266,976 by folkert 9/7/06 9:19:25 PM Reply	Where is the Water Brigade? -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Freedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0; 0 rows returned.
Post #266,979 by drewk 9/7/06 10:12:54 PM Reply	I could lose weeks of my life on google video [link\|http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-8867862777896510907\|http://video.google....67862777896510907] === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #266,980 by Another Scott 9/7/06 10:35:15 PM Reply	Wow!
Post #266,982 by broomberg 9/7/06 10:40:24 PM Reply	I already have
Post #266,999 by SpiceWare 9/8/06 12:05:29 AM Reply	impressive Darrell Spice, Jr. Trendy yet complex\nPeople seek me out - though they're not sure why\n[link\|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass\|Artistic Overpass] [link\|http://www.spiceware.org/\|SpiceWare]
Post #266,991 by rcareaga 9/7/06 11:24:28 PM Reply	actual mileage may vary Upon further investigation it appears that the explosions were, ah, fudged. It should have been "Now imagine a small quantity of dynamite detonated in a bathtub in order to simulate the violent explosion that the cesium didn't produce." [link\|http://www.badscience.net/?p=270\|http://www.badscience.net/?p=270] cordite-ially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #267,016 by Ashton 9/8/06 7:23:58 AM Reply	Re: actual mileage may vary I presumed fakery re the small (shown unchopped) Rb, Cs samples; I've seen what passes for scientism on US shows. (A quicksand 'experiment' which did not demonstrate what they thought it did, comes to mind.) Guess I'm inured now to BS across the board - Muricans demand exaggeration; apparently Brits like it too. Understandable why they wouldn't explore the means for containment/enhancement. I await Fatherland Security's cancellation of HS Chem classes, in a next phase. 'Course too, the skit doesn't remotely address the suggested relative reaction-rates for the metals (it's not obvious how that relates to At. No.; I never investigated that to any precision, doubt it is anything like the implications of this skit) - but energy release certainly is proportional to surface area and other physical conditions you can control. ie you Could shape a charge to blast that tub, with any of the alkali metals. Just not the way they showed it. Maybe those clowns don't know any real chem..! If they thought they needed dynamite - they don't / or just lazy. Cthulhu forbid that a show should actually intend to Teach anything - it's soooo iinefficient in the all-MBA-all-the-time era, to learn something which you can't sell immediately. Glad there's PBS, for awhile at least. I'll report on my Rb test.. whenever.
Post #267,017 by Another Scott 9/8/06 7:33:31 AM Reply	500 error :-(. Here's another link to a debunking page. [link\|http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/AlkaliBangs/index.html\|Theodore Gray - Alkali Metal Bangs]: I have assembled this page to try to shed some light on the truth behind a recent controversy generated by the popular British television show Brainiac. A few seasons ago Brainiac broadcast an episode in which they claimed to show what happens when approximately two grams of each of the five alkali metals (lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium) are thrown into a tub of water. The first three were, probably, real, but the last two explosions turned out to have been completely fake. They simply put a bomb in a bathtub and blew it to bits, pretending that this was the result of two grams of rubidium. Then they did it again and pretended it was two grams of cesium. (Cesium is spelled caesium where they come from, buy lying in lying on either side of the Atlantic.) This shocking fact was revealed by reporter [link\|http://www.badscience.net/\|Ben Goldacre] in [link\|http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,1821144,00.html\|an article] in The Guardian (a respected daily newspaper in England). The next week he followed up with further revelations about the [link\|http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,1826518,00.html\|deplorable state of honesty at Brainiac]. (Modesty prevents me from pointing out that his second article compares my humble [link\|http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/index.html\|sodium party] most favorably to the fakers over at Brainiac.) Ted's "Sodium Release-o-tron" is a clever, er, -o-tron. I thought only [link\|http://www.walterolson.com/articles/crashtests.html\|US network TV shows] stooped to such levels. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #267,052 by lincoln 9/8/06 2:22:08 PM Reply	Faked or not, it still was enjoyable I'm glad to see that Europe has their own version of "Mythbusters" (who've never met a challenge that didn't require blowing something up yet). lincoln "Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem. I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a *Citizen* of the United States. [link\|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net\|contact me]
Post #267,177 by static 9/10/06 10:44:20 PM Reply	Damn. But I guess I'm not that surprised. One of the commercial channels in Au started showing Brainiac a little while back. It got bad reviews in the local press - not mainly because of the dodgy science, but because of the glamour girls they were sexing the show up with. Contrariwise, [link\|http://sss.sbs.com.au/\|SBS] were showing MythBusters before it was cool - uncut, I believe. I don't know if the main three have tried to outbid SBS for the actual show, but a locally made science and technology show air parts of older MB episodes (one myth, usually), so I guess they tried and failed. Wade. "Insert crowbar. Apply force."
Post #267,007 by Ashton 9/8/06 6:07:33 AM Reply	Ohhh... Yeahhhhh... he says avec brisance Nostalgia City, of course - one of my fav distractions from any serious chem work. Loved. It. Yup, grab the slab of Li (more $$) Na, K out of the kerosene with some tongs, snip off a piece. Decide on the er, rise-time of the effect (cut into small bits or teensy bits?) - put in container, rubber hose with funnel on other end. Add water and ... split. 'Course choose a handy acid - and double your fun. Put in hefty closed container \ufffd l\ufffd old soda/acid fire extinguishers of yore: see real Destruction. No matches needed (though an igniter could enhance matters - setting off the released hydrogen+air too, for the pi\ufffdce de resist\ufffdnce. Toss in a little peroxide for overkill.) Hey, it's just like cooking... - there's room for artistry in your choice of spice enhancements. Old chemists never die.. they just effloresce and sublime. Pity that modrin kids would need a space suit + big insurance policy to be permitted near anything this much Fun. 'Twould be a good antidote to i-Pod-reduced consciousness, I wot. Add to list - what we've lost to the illusion of perpetual Security (even before the neofascisticon devolution grabbed the pewling Heartland right where their alleged balls were said to be.) Hmmmmm, damn if I don't still have a glass ampoule of lovely silvery Rubidium, saved these several years! More than 2 grams IIRC; quite more than is in the small Rb lamp in one's time standard (Rb: the poor person's sub for a $$$ hP Cesium 'atomic clock' thingie.) Pity, no Cesium hereabouts :-/ ... wtf, screw a pukka experiment for the Rb, I think for old times sake I'll just
Post #267,027 by imqwerky 9/8/06 11:01:34 AM Reply	Well, I guess there's always good ol' Mythbusters Seems like they do their homework(read math and chemistry) Wish they would show a bit more of it actually but I guess they're afraid of scaring the kiddies. On the plus side, my daughter, who is now in the 5th grade, is an ardent fan and still claims science as her favorite subject. Smile, Amy [link\|http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Amy%20Rathman\|Pics of the Family]
Post #267,028 by drewk 9/8/06 11:04:52 AM Reply	And according to the links on the debunking site ... When the Beeb rebroadcasts Mythbusters, they clip out most of the trial-and-error parts of setting up the experiments and the failed attempts -- the ones that demonstrate why the myth is actually busted, usually -- and skip right the the explosions. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #267,029 by imqwerky 9/8/06 11:10:37 AM Reply	Sucks to be a Brit :-/ Smile, Amy [link\|http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Amy%20Rathman\|Pics of the Family]

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