Mac n cheese
Speedballing
Does uni count? I synthesised aspirin.
Does biochemistry count? I exponentially copied very specifically selected short fragments of DNA. From 1 to up to 1,099,511,627,776 copies in just 2 hours. I’ve also very specifically cut and glued together DNA strands.
And at home, I just extracted juice from red cabbage and played with changing its colour by adding lemon juice or baking soda.
My great nephew as a teenager ran afoul of an old-school BBS archive website. He was certain it would be good fun to make a few incendiaries, Despite my attempts to dissuade him, he began to hide his enthusiasm, which had me worried he’d do it on his own. I figured it’d be wiser (and safer) to have someone with a bit of chemistry knowledge around when he tried doing dumb things.
We started small. I purchased some dry ice. Thermite was too boring. Elephant toothpaste was cool at first. Some petrol with polystyrene mixed in. Aluminium and acid cleaner. Then onto fertiliser tennis balls.
We eventually worked our way up to the Taj Mahal… Cyclonite. Hexogen. RDX. Unstable as the devil and more volatile than nitrated toluene, or TNT. The chemistry was very simple, but ridiculously foolish. I consider it advanced only due to the difficulty in ensuring we didn’t get to visit a hospital or get a visit from the bobbies.
Never again. It took several days because I multiplied the recipe, like a dunce. We should’ve just made TNT, it would’ve been safer, but he persisted and I indulged.
The night before the big day. At this point, we’d been faffing around a dangerous line for almost ten months, whenever he managed to wrangle some free time for more mischief. I’d managed to extract a promise, this was to be the last of it until after his national service. He agreed. Keeping it in the boot of the car had me especially anxious,and until we saw the detonation, I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The detonations in a desolate field were gratifyingly lovely though. He got the final trigger on an over sized charge, and his grin was worth the heartache.
He’s a pharmacist now.
wow I don’t know what most of these are but it sounded risky. I was reading your story hoping it wouldn’t end badly.
It was all in the name of fun… mostly. It was also one of the most memorable teaching experiences.
I thought I mentioned smoke bombs, but apparently not. They were a good litmus test to see if the boy could keep a secret. Following which were: Dry ice bombs. Thermite, Elephant Toothpaste. Napalm. Hydrogen gas explosions. (If you see a plastic bottle on your lawn filled with blue liquid, do NOT disturb. Call the non emergency police line.) Nitrogen explosions. (See 2020 Beirut explosion for visuals.) And a few other unmentionables that are much too easy to manufacture, one of which I saw in another’s answer.
RDX (Royal Demolition eXplosive) is the oomph behind the plastic explosive C-4. It is slightly more explosive than C-4, because it hasn’t been stabilized by anything.
All ended well and mostly good. Unfortunately I think I assisted the boy is believing breaking the law was fine so long as you don’t get caught. Now I can’t look at chemical formulae without my heart starting to pick up the pace. However, there were no injuries, no actual close calls except the spilled water when we started the dry ice. Following which the boy sat through several intensive lessons each on operations security, command structure and discipline, distractions, and safety. We learned safely, which is all that matters in the end.
So cool. And how do you know all this ? are you a teacher ?
No, not a professional anyhow. We’re all teachers of one kind or another.
I consider myself a hacker of the classical variety. Not a cracker, but someone who is driven to understand something until the puzzle pieces fall together elegantly. You can do all of this yourself, if you can make it through a decent chemistry book. Look for “A Molecular Approach”, Tro teaches the subject well.
Once you get to the point of understanding catalysis, you can make a detonation out of just about anything. After you can solve chemistry problems, all it really takes is a written reaction 2H + O = H2O to give you an idea of how you might go about making said reactions. The composition of Semtex is public knowledge, just ask Wikipedia.
Made soap out of lye and a mix of fats and oils.
Stripped a cast iron pan using electrolysis, although that might be more physics than chemistry. I had to add Sodium Carbonate so that’s pretty sciencey!
Chemistry is just messy physics.
Biology is just messy chemistry.
Physics is just messy math.
Your list is in a messy order.
Philosophy is just messy biology.
Extracted lidocaine from butt lube.
For me it has been etching circuit boards and specifically making my own liquid tinning solution at one point. I mostly do hydrochloric acid/hydrogen peroxide on larger stuff and ferric chloride on smaller prototypes.
There was one time when I put a mold filled with liquid water in a cold container and made solid water.
that sounds super dangerous!
Cooking & baking
I don’t do that much of that but I hear my guts can do some amazing chemistry on the food all on their own, not to mention the cells themselves.
Weed science. No complicated at all, but there’s so much bro science out there…
Liquid gas column extraction of organic compounds? I’m told that’s something you should definitely do outside!
Oh no… Mine is super basic… Flower, everclear, freezer, air fryer.
Alcohol isn’t that great as an organic solvent. Are you using the air fryer to evaporate? That must be a fair fire risk!
Butane on the other hand is a good organic solvent and will evaporate at room temperature (just don’t evaporate it in a room or near any heat source).
I’m happy with it - i feel like the extraction i get is pretty good for the ease and safety of my little setup. I’m not trying to make enough to sell, just mostly making cheezits and candies for friends. When i do have a lot to process i usually do a dry ice shake.
Extracted lsa from morning glory seeds in order to make my own knock-off lsd
Yeah, polar/non-polar extractions are about as far as my home chemistry got. But the LSA was good.
Amen, brother.
I take in oxygen and turn it into philosophical thought.
Same, except I turn it into farts.
Basically the same thing, honestly.
Production of chlorine gas
baking bread
This one is underrated. That shit is like college-level difficult
Pop Rocks, mouth, coca cola.
