tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post3522311622264427035..comments2024-03-16T18:38:15.627-07:00Comments on Flogging Babel: Mad Science for the MassesMichael Swanwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-40040222107314118802009-10-16T16:49:52.833-07:002009-10-16T16:49:52.833-07:00When I was a kid my brother tried to make gun cott...When I was a kid my brother tried to make gun cotton in our bathroom sink. Unfortunately, he used brown paper bags instead of a more conventional source of cellulose (white office paper? I don't really understand the details) and there seems to have been chlorine in that brown paper. That's what it smelled like, anyway. Perhaps the chlorine came from something else? Anyway, luckily it was in the bathroom which had a fanned vent, so the yellowish gas that was produced vented away outside. When my mom came home and smelled chlorine, he explained that because we had friends over, he had used bleach to clean the bathroom. <br /><br />Oddly enough, despite the early enthusiasm, I think he decided he was not all that interested in, or particularly talented at, chemistry after this.David Stonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09983230505509685792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-36648183027444685092009-10-16T09:42:54.900-07:002009-10-16T09:42:54.900-07:00Wow. I must get a copy of that book.
My dad got ...Wow. I must get a copy of that book.<br /><br />My dad got kicked out of Berkeley for 1) blowing up a chem lab, and 2) "attempted murder" (he had done the blue urine trick on a classmate, but had put the chemical in pill form into some peanut brittle. When she bit into the candy, the pill was exposed).<br /><br />A dear friend of mine is a research physicist at IBM's Almaden Research facility, and he got me a copy of the cookbook that the guys had put together--it has THREE different recipes for ice cream that use liquid nitrogen for the freezing.<br /><br />I love science nerds!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16780200845677597373noreply@blogger.com