jdurg

If he just has them in garbage bags, all the H2 will escape overnight. Tomorrow morning there will be nothing left in the bags.

In reality, however, it is NEVER a good idea to store ANY explosive mixture/compound. If you are even going to make them at all, you make what you need when you need it and not any more. The only thing that can happen when you try and store explosives over a long period of time is a loss of expensive chemicals, property, and lives. Remember, there is no such thing as a 'safe explosive'. All explosives are inherently dangerous. If they weren't dangerous, they wouldn't explode. It's a catch-22 of sorts.

It can't be true. The human body does not produce methane in the quantities that would be required to asphyxiate the individual. In addition, there is no way that a hotel room would be air tight and not allow any air to get in, or any air to get out. The hazards with methane are also more in terms of flammability than in terms of toxicology. I honestly don't believe that methane is toxic at all, though I'd have to look that information up before conclusively saying so. Anyway, there is no possible way for that story to be true. It simply cannot physically happen. (Remember, chemistry is used a lot to exaggerate stories and make things up as the people who make these false stories assume that the people reading them have zero knowledge about science and chemistry). To further prove the falsity of this claim, click here. (God I love snopes. )

Generally speaking, if someone is looking to make sodium metal, they don't have lithium metal hanging around. (And the stuff you pull from a battery is too heavily corroded to be of any use).

I am not sure. I would think from the structure of carbonic acid being akin to a ketone with the -OH groups in place of hydrocarbon groups, that the compound would be a liquid. I would also think that carbonic acid exists in an aqueous state, but in fleetingly small quantities. (I.E. it forms, decomposes, forms, decomposes, etc. etc.). That's something I'd have to look up.

That would be virtually impossible. I'm pretty much going to guarantee you that it is a made up/exaggerated Urban Legned.

Perhaps too many hazaradous materials and explosives recipes being posted? (One Hazmat violation = 15 points).

Actually, carbonic acid has been isolated before. It has the structure O=C-(OH)2 according to the response given in this Q&A. The article ""On the surprising kinetic stability of carbonic acid (H2CO3)", Loerting T., Tautermann C. S., Kroemer R. T., Kohl I., Hallbrucker A., Mayer E., and Liedl K. R., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2000, 39, 891-894" is also further proof that carbonic acid exists as a species. So I would say, yes, H2CO3 is an actual acid and has been isolated as such.

It can be done in a typical lab, but only with the right equipment and a lot of materials (As explained in my lengthy post). The amount of time and effort required to do the electrolysis is simply not worth it when you can just go and buy some sodium metal dirt cheap from a supplier. It is possible to generate small quantities of sodium metal without the use of a dry box, but you'd still have to use a LOT of heat to keep the NaOH molten and working with molten NaOH is a very dangerous thing to do. Also, because of the heat the sodium that is made will be in the form of little liquid droplets of highly reactive metal. If any of that water vapor that is formed at the positive electrode comes in contact with the molten sodium metal, you're going to wind up with an explosion that sends liquid Na and liquid NaOH all over the area. If that gets on you, you're not going to be happy. Besides, even if you were able to make the sodium without an explosion happening, the stuff you get will be HEAVILY oxidized and you're not going to be happy with the product. It's cheaper, easier, and safer to just go out and buy some.

Woelen is not kidding. My freshman year of college I did a research project on the conformations of Green Fluorescent Protein. (Published in the Journal Of Chemical Physics "Photoisomerization of green fluorescent protein and the dimensions of the chromophore cavity." Chemical Physics, 270 (2001): 157-164.) We did numerous calculations to derive what the most stable conformation of the protein was. With the molecular mass of the protein being so incredibly high, it literally took weeks to calculate the energy of ONE conformation. Some of the calculations actually took months to finish up using numerous SGI workstations. I'll never forget the feeling of disgust when we finished a VERY long calculation only to look at the model and see that we accidentally had a pentavalent carbon atom in there. hehe.

What you have to do is get yourself a dry box. A dry box is a completely sealed box with which all of the air inside can be purged out and replaced with another gas. Take a good amount of the dry sodium hydroxide and put it inside the dry box. Close all the doors and pump the air out of the drybox. When the vaccuum is made, start backfilling with argon gas. This way you'll have a very nice argon atmosphere in there. Now take the sodium hydroxide in this dry box and melt it by heating it up. (You should have the heating apparatus already in there). Make sure the sodium hydroxide is completely molten. With the NaOH in a liquid form, you can now do electrolysis. Take a voltage source and put the positive and negative electrodes into the molten NaOH. (Make sure the electrodes won't melt and that they won't react with the INCREDIBLY caustic molten NaOH). With the electrodes in there, turn on your voltage source. You will soon see molten sodium metal form at one electrode, and water vapor and oxygen forming at the other electrode. YOU MUST keep the oxygen and water vapor away from your molten sodium. If you don't, a small explosion will occur as the molten sodium reacts with the oxygen and water. So you should probably isolate that positive electrode (Where the oxygen and water will form) and have a dessicant material there to absorb the water and a way to outlet the oxygen out of the box. Once you have this setup going for quite a while, you'll be able to obtain a bunch of sodium metal. Then you just need to let everything cool off so that it will solidify and find a way to store your metal. Now seriously speaking, it's not that easy to do. I assume that you want the sodium metal because you want to throw it into some water. Now why do you want to throw it into some water? Because it will react rapidly, correct? So if it reacts rapidly with water, do you think you'd be able to get sodium metal out of an aqueous solution of a sodium salt? The only way to generate sodium metal is to electrolyze a molten sodium salt. If you don't do it in an inert atmosphere devoid of water and oxygen, the liquid metal that forms will quickly react and you won't be able to make quantities much larger than a gram or so total. (If everything works out alright).

In addition, the He would RAPIDLY boil and move upwards due to its incredibly low density.

butyric acid has that lovely smell of rotted butter. Blech!

In all of chemistry, I don't think there is any 'one' test that will 100% positively identify a substance. Multiple tests are always needed. For water, one would be dissolving an ionic compound in the liquid, and dissolve a known amount until saturated. Table salt, for instance, will dissolve to a certain extent in water which is different for that of ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, etc. With the temperature of the liquid known, the amount of salt added until saturated known, you should be able to tell that it's conclusively water just by that data. In addition, your nose will play a powerful role in determining what it is since water is odorless and all other liquids that I know of have some type of odor to them.

Many of those glass bulbs used a fine magnesium wire that was sealed inside an oxygen rich atmosphere. I actually don't recall aluminum being used at all.

It would not be possible. In order to explode, something has to create gases in a very rapid fashion which cannot be contained by the container it's in. (An explosion is the rapid expansion of gases created during a chemical or physical reaction). Any reaction which produces a gas from a non-gaseous starting mixture will be exothermic. So in order to make it go 'KABOOM' you'd have to have a chemical reaction which would generate a lot of gas, but that reaction will also generate a ton of heat. There is no chemical reaction out there which can simultaneously occur which will cause the degree of a temperature change that you are asking about. (As the endothermic reaction would not only have to cool off the air and surrounding materials which are heated by the explosion, but it would also have to cool off everything in the area.

Actually, plain old nitric acid really won't turn it into an explosive. There's another ingredient that is needed in order to effectively nitrate the cellulouse. I'm not going to be detailing what it is here, but it's fairly important in the nitration reaction.

Gallium is completely non-toxic. There is no way you can get hurt by it unless you take a bath in it. Comparing it in ANY way to mercury is just flat out wrong. (Ga does not vaporize to ANY extent).

You can find it at the local cancer center under the 'This crap is why we have so much work these days' section.

Well of course. This wasn't an easy thing to decide upon. It's just that the 'petitioners' couldn't come up with a strong enough argument to change the minds of 100+ years of precedence. I think they did they best they could with this case. In this way, they just said 'we're not changing anything. If something like this comes up again, we'll just have to deal with it again'.

I personally think it's a waste of our time and money to propose an Amendment such as the one described in this thread. I also feel that the U.S. Constitution is not really valid in terms of modern times. It was written and ratified in an era which is VASTLY different than current society, and it contains numerous flaws and issues which simply do not apply to society today. Really, I think the entire thing should just be scrapped and a new one written with modern society in mind.

It is way too funny how misinterpreted this decision is by just about everybody out there. Take the time, please, and read through the entire document and not just the one or two lines that the newsmedia are pointing out. This decision by the Supreme Court is absolutely, positively, nothing new. There are numerous cases of precedence documented in the decision which have already said the exact same things that this judgement is saying. No new laws or rights have been granted. It's just that rights have not been taken away. Since the lat 1800's, governments have had the power to take away land and give it to a private individual if it is for the benefit of the community. (A case that is cited in the decision, I believe, mentions a mining corporation and their seizure of land in order to build transport lines). Based upon their judgement, in order for a city to seize the property of a private individual, they MUST do so as part of a planned out redevelopment project which is for the proven benefit of the public. They can't just take the land because ONE individual wants to build something there. Just think of what would happen if the law was changed and the power was fully given to the individuals. I know the town that this case came from. (I live a short drive away from New London, CT). In this area we also have the U.S. Naval SubBase, and with its potential closure the economy of the area could take a MASSIVE hit. If the base closes and the economy does stagnate, let's say the city of Groton has a plan to redevelop the area in order to attract people to the city and bring in some economic gains to help improve schools, law enforcement, etc. There is one squatter, however, who refuses to give up his/her home in order to benefit the area. If the Supreme Court had decided in the other manner, however, the city would have no legal recourse and the economy would further decay and the detriment to the people of the area would increase tremendously. Or, let's say that a corporation is nested in a city and a competitor wants to move into an area of the city that the local government is thinking about redeveloping. The owner of that corporation could just buy a house in the redevelopment area and prevent not only the redevelopment of the area, but the introduction of competition. Would that be a good thing? As the decision was handed down, it leaves open legal recourse for those who feel they are affected. The Supreme Court basically said 'we don't see any arguments which should make us switch our beliefs on this issue which have been in existance for hundreds of years'. If there is an issue on whether or not a seizure is legal, take it through the court system.

But isn't a shadow just an abscence of light due to the blockage of light by another object?

Capacitors can easily kill a human. Inside CRTs there are very highly charged capacitors which have given off lethal shocks to people unfortuneate enough to touch them before they had discharged. Hence all the warnings on the outside of TVs and computer monitors. Typically speaking, however, it is the amperages that need to be looked at when investigating a possible 'shock'. A simple 'rub your feet on the carpet and touch a metal door knob in the winter' type of shock is about 200,000 volts, yet the amperage is so low that it only causes a minor 'sting'. Typical household electrical lines (here in the USA at least) carry about 110 volts and I forget the amperage. However the amperage is sufficiently high enough that you can quite readily be killed by receiving a full shock. In the end, it's the combination of volts and amps that kills you. High volts and low amps will kill just as effectively as low volts and high amps. It's just that voltages are generally sufficently high enough that small fluctuations in amperage can be the difference between a lethal shock and annoying zap.

Actualy, esterification isn't made in high school labs not because of the sulfuric acid, but because a great number of complete retards take the product and inhale it to get high. Teachers generally won't say 'we can't do that because it can get you high' as they don't want to give out any ideas, but that's the general gist of it. (BTW, in case any complete idiots are reading this, getting 'high' by sniffing esters is like sniffing rubber cement to get high. The chances of you dropping dead are VERY high when you do that).