I'm almost 100% certain the article was not run past a chemist before publishing. Its like saying you could make a ipod out of a watch, because both use circuit boards and silicon based chips. Mostly names wrong, but some basic concepts were messed up like you don't make a fertilizer bomb out of potassium nitrate. Having done several undergrad chem classes, I'm impressed how much of the article was outright wrong on a chemistry basis, along with lots of the HN comments. Heck if you had a place were us adults could go and play chemistry set like our old days - even if it is in a room were no chemicals can leave, well i'd know alot would be up for that.īut it is a balance between saftly and education and in many ways that balance is overly biased deeming everybody by default to be a mad drig producing, WMD making terrorist and that in itself is just sad. So in many ways kids can still have ther bang fun and snappies are still available and great fun in pea-shooters.īut chemisty fun is one they just can't get until at school and then it's overly controlled with most being demostrations without the level of intereaction some need. Still at least kids can buy gun-caps still and from those you can make bolt-bombs, bangers (with celotape and electic bang fuses) and also great fun added to the end of a dart with cotton wall around the shaft. It's not like we don't know how every combination fo chemical in a 60's chemistry set will react in every permutation and it is also not like we don't have the processing power to do some of the cleverness in a way that is educational and appealing. Now maybe we could oneday get a digital chemistry set were you can relive all the old wonderful explosions and resctions. But for young boys who wish to see things go bang it is sadly not of much use. I must say the aspect of offering perfume type chemistry sets is a novel approach and I appaud that level of thinking. Well if they did half of what kids back then did they would be labeled terrorists and packaged up as one, which is in many ways very very sad. It is lamentable and whilst kids in the 60's could build bombs and other fun kids stuff of the time. Sadly as stated in the article alot of the chemicals your dads got to play with are no longer available at a consumer level and in that be it most protect the children approach was not even the main reason were in this state. My chemistry set kept me out of trouble as a teenager because blowing things up, playing with chemicals and fire wasn't new to me, I was desensitised to it all when I was young and the thought of blowing up a car battery or soda bulb paled in comparison to magnesium ribbon or an explosive chemical cocktail mixture courtesy of my chemistry set.
I feel sorry for kids these days who won't ever get to experience the fun in mixing semi-dangerous chemicals together in a test tube or beaker, I believe my chemistry set is what made me become the programmer I am today. I remember my dad painted like 5 coats of paint over the top and it kept showing through, those were the days.ĭon't get me started on the excitement of burning magnesium ribbon, my kerosene powered Bunsen burner that I almost burned down the wooden front-deck with when I accidentally knocked it over, experimenting with beakers and filter paper. There wasn't anything crazy like uranium or other chemicals that could create amphetamines, but I do recall blindly mixing ingredients in a test tube, blowing the top and bottom of it out and covering a portion of the roof in the mixture which then proceeded to burn through the paint and etch the wood. I'm only 24, but I remember when I was 12 having a chemistry set that had some pretty crazy chemicals in it.
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