jdurg

That is probably a better way of putting it, but still, if you evaporate the water away you end up with the exact same thing you started with. Also, just because an equillibrium exists does not mean that it's a chemical reaction. Look at the equillibrium that exists when a substance is boiling. An equillibrium is set up between the liquid phase of the substance and the gas phase. No chemical reaction is occuring at all, but an equillibrium exists.

Also, NI3 won't go off while you're in the process of making it. The others may indeed go off right while it's being made. Therefore, in an ironic sort of way, the very high sensitivity of nitrogen triiodide makes it a relatively safer high explosive. (Again, I emphasize 'relative'. A red-hot tungsten filament is relatively cooler than molten iron, but I wouldn't want to touch either of them).

If the professor is young, then he/she is being a dick. If the professor is old, then they may have honestly forgot that they said 'this won't be on the test'. I've had both situations occur to me, and when it was the younger professor being a dick they just worked their way into some messed up logic to state that they were right. When it was an elderly professor, myself and a bunch of other people who wrote down what he had said went up and mentioned how he said the material wasn't going to be on the exam. He then remembered and said that the particular section of the exam would not be counted towards our total score unless we indicated that we wanted it to.

Heh. People wearing gold rings who work with mercury and wind up with a little spill certainly find out really quickly.

Mercury doesn't change the gold in any way, shape, or form. If it did, then simply boiling off the mercury would not leave you with gold. Saying that mercury chemically dissolves gold is like saying that water chemically dissolves salt. It doesn't. It's a physical change and not a chemical one. What the miners did was rely on a physical property of gold and mercury. Gold will easily amalgamate with mercury while many of the impurities will not. As a result, it's a way to physically purify the gold. Once it has been amalgamated, they simply heat the 'solution' and drive off the mercury much like one would drive off the water in a water solution of something. When aqua regia is used, however, it chemically changes the gold. It turns the gold into a soluble ion. Just evaporating off all the water/acid won't leave you with pure gold. You need further chemical refining. Therefore, it's a chemical dissolution and not a physical one.

But we like it when you're nauseous.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, YT, but is this a good example? Good: Teaching someone how to generate chlorine gas so that they can have it for an element collection, or use it in another experiment. All the while mentioning that chlorine is nasty stuff and can severely hurt you. Bad: Teaching someone how to make chlorine gas and saying 'Don't worry, this stuff is harmless. It can't hurt a flea. By the way, did you know that this stuff can kill things pretty easily if you.........?"

I'm not a moderator but I believe that the practicality of making and abusing large quantities of the nitrogen trihalides just isn't there. It takes a good deal of iodine and ammonia solution to make a good sized batch of NI3. In addition, you can't make it, store it, then transport it someplace. It must be made in the same place that it is going to be used. As a result, it's not a very good compound for people looking to vandalize things. The other compounds that you've mentioned, while being very unstable, can be transported, packaged, and moved around once they've been synthesized. As a result, they can be used in very nasty ways to vandalize and cause harm to things. NI3 really can't do that. Also, the synthesis of NI3 is actually pretty safe. Until the stuff dries out, you don't have to worry about it going KABOOM. With the other stuff, as soon as it's made it can go KABOOM. Therefore, it can explode right in the lab where it is being made before it is dried and/or purified. NI3 will not explode until it is fully dried. As a result, even though NI3 is classified as a 'high explosive', it's not in the same category of 'end your life now' as the other mentioned compounds are. Again, I'm not a mod here but that could possibly be some of the reasoning. You'd have to be really friggen stupid to hurt yourself making NI3, but you only need to be careless to hurt yourself making the other stuff. (Then again, if you're making the other stuff you're pretty friggen stupid. )

Because NI3 is so inherently unstable that you really can't create any 'terroristic' compositions with it. It has to be made where you plan on detonating it and cannot be transported at all. With the other compounds mentioned above, they are more stable than NI3 and can be made in much larger quantities and transported around. Therefore, you could make it at home, take it someplace else and then detonate it. As a result, it is more of a danger to society than NI3 is and has more sinister uses than the typical 'wow, that's cool' of NI3.

I've found that good way to really look into probability is looking at the rank of hands in poker, and also playing the game. Every hand, you have to think of the probability that your hand will win and how likely it is that you are right. If you don't think you have the hand won, you have to then think about the probability of getting the card(s) you need compared to the amount of money you could possibly win (pot odds). It's actually more mathematical than one would think. But spending the time to go through the different hands and then rank them based on their probability of happening is pretty interesting.

I'll be in the 5th level of hell. Oddly enough, I don't mind Styx.

Good point about the lactic acid stuff. That also allows me to compile a 'Good Idea/Bad Idea' list in regards to paintball. Good Idea: Eat a plate of fettucine the night before the game. Bad Idea: Eat a plate of Fettucine Alfredo the night before the game. Good Idea: Wear your new camoflage shirt to the game. Bad Idea: Wear ONLY your new camoflage shirt to the game. Good Idea: Bring your best gun to the game. Bad Idea: Bring your best shotgun to the game. Good Idea: Drink plenty of fluids while playing. Bad Idea: Drink plenty of alcohol fluid while playing. Good Idea: Lay on the ground so that you can't be seen. Bad Idea: Lay on the ground in the middle of an open field. Good Idea: Bring plenty of ammo. Bad Idea: Bring only the ammo. Good Idea: Purchase an atheltic cup. Bad Idea: Leave the cup in your car. So these are some good pieces of advice that I'll have to remember for the next game.

akcapr, open up a bottle of bleach and tell me what color it is. Now look at some piles of rust and tell me what color that is. Do you honestly believe that Iron oxide, which is insoluble in water, will turn the water a yellow color? The yellow color is caused by the dissolution of chlorine gas into the water and the presence of sodium hypochlorite which forms as the chlorine gas dissolves in the forming sodium hydroxide solution. An equillibrium is achieved where some free elemental chlorine always remains dissolved in solution. (Hence the reason why chlorine bleach is yellow in color).

Mendelejev, check out the link in the post I made shortly above yours. The guy there is from Austria and has a decent amount of samples for a pretty good price. I just picked up some ampouled sodium, selenium, and fluorine from him. You may also want to check out http://www.smartelements.com as Juergen has a bunch of elements for the collectors in Europe. http://www.elementsales.com is Dave Hamric's webpage, and while he is based here in the USA and is unable to ship certain items overseas, he can provide a wide range of metals for your collection. It's good to see another element collector out there. It's amazing how many of us there are, yet how 'hidden' our hobby seems to be. Be sure to read the sticky thread here at the top of the forums and check out the periodic table over at http://www.chemicalforums.com. The pictures used in that periodic table are from my collection.

I'm not 100% sure if this is directly chemistry related, but it kind of is. I'm a big fan of The Onion which is an online news "spoofing" site. Each week they update their site and have a section for horroscopes. My birthday is in early August, so I'm a Leo. Today I went to their site, www.theonion.com and checked out the horroscope. Upon reading my horroscope, I broke out into fits of laughter. Here's why: "Leo: (July 23—Aug. 22) Three extremely important events will mark your last days on earth: First, you find out you can buy uranium over the Internet. The second and third pretty much follow as the night follows the day." LMFAO.

Yeah, I've figured that part out. In a few weeks, once I've gotten quite a few games in, the cramps should go away. It just sucks when they hit because they aren't these weak little baby cramps. These are full-blown "say things that small children should never hear' cramps.

It wasn't the paintballs that were cramping me. It was the running up and down rocky terrain, different elevations, and multiple miles worth of running that wore me out and led to the cramping.

Yes, the color change is the liberation of chlorine gas. Chlorine gas is fairly soluble in water, and even more so in an alkaline solution of water. When you are electrolyzing the salt/water solution, you are forming chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide. These two react and give you sodium hypochlorite (Bleach) which will further react due to the electrolysis forming a bunch of other stuff as well. You may be able to use sodium carbonate, or sodium bicarbonate as your electrolyte as that will create carbon dioxide gas and not chlorine gas. That would make a 'cleaner' solution. Also, what type of electrode are you using? Platinum is the best electrode to use, but a might bit expensive. Pure Graphite is another good, and inexpensive, electrode. Anything else will undoubtably react with the reaction going on.

Actually, aren't all fuels gasses during the burning process? It isn't really the liquid itself that is burning, it's the vapors coming off the heated liquid that burn and keep the flame going.

Sorry Budellewraagh, but I have to disagree with you here. Look at ANY activity series or standard reduction potential series and you will find that gold is not as high in the listings as silver is. Silver is by far more active/reactive than gold is.

But as I said, just buying the stuff isn't as much fun. If I go and react a tiny chunk, not only do I get to see a potassium reaction, but it can be useful as well.

I've eaten plenty of bananas. But eating bananas or buying KCl isn't nearly as much fun as making your own potassium supplements.

This past weekend I was playing paintball with some friends and coworkers and spent a good six hour running around and putting my body to the extreme. After all the running, I rested for the rest of the day and felt some intense muscle cramps in my legs. (The type of cramping that makes you curl up into a ball and scream in agony. These things hurt BAAAAAAAAAAD and I hope they don't happen again). I know why the muscles cramped up, and that's due to the potassium ions in the muscle cells being depleted. Too little potassium and your muscles cramp up. Too much and they relax too much, almost to the point of paralysis. (Hence why KCl is injected into the bloodstream of the condemned. It stops their heart from beating). With this potassium defficiency, I thought of an idea. I have a good deal of potassium metal in my element collection. What if I took about a cup-full of water and put in a tiny <1 gram nugget of potassium. I'd use a small chunk of K since a large chunk would result in a violent explosion. Once it's all reacted, I'd have a solution of KOH. Now let's say I neutralize it with a great deal of lemon juice; citric acid. (I'd know it's neutral by using a pH meter). I could then add a slight excess of lemon juice, some sugar to sweeten it up, and have a glass of high potassium content lemonade. This would prevent muscle cramping before a lot of exercise, and would be pretty neat to try. Are they any 'bad things' that could pop up which would make this not such a good idea?