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.