Exilian
Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter => History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library => Topic started by: Glaurung on July 25, 2015, 09:14:38 PM
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We don't seem to get much posted about chemistry here, so I thought that, as a former chemist (at least up to degree level), I should do something about this. Fortunately, I've found someone who's already done the hard work, i.e. writing intelligently and wittily about things chemical, and all I have to do is provide the links :)
So, there's a chemist named Derek Lowe who publishes a blog, aptly named In The Pipeline (http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/). Chemistry as a subject is known for producing bangs and smells; the blog has an occasional series of articles under the heading of Things I Won't Work With (http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-i-wont-work-with), looking at a variety of highly explosive, smelly or otherwise noxious chemicals.
These are some of my favourite posts:
- Sand Won't Save You This Time (http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time) (hence the title of this post) about chlorine trifluoride (ClF3), which reacts so vigorously that it will burn sand. There's a follow-up post (http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/04/05/chlorine_trifluoride_some_empirical_findings) with a YouTube video showing some reactions.
- dioxygen difluoride (http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride), another extremely vigorous reactant, memorably described in the post as "Satan's kimchi".
Edit: I've updated all the links - "In The Pipeline" switched hosts. The old host stayed up for while, but is now intermittently off-line.