The Chemical-Free Chemistry Kit 296
eldavojohn writes "It's known that home chemistry sets are in danger of going extinct, which has spurred set makers to add the label 'Chemical Free!' on modern chemistry sets (NSFW warning — JAYFK stands for Journal of Are You *expletive* Kidding). The kit for ages 10+ provides 60 chemistry activities that are mind-bogglingly chemical free. The pedantic blog entry points out the many questions that arise when the set promises 'fun activities' like growing plants and crystals — sans chemicals! That would be quite the feat to accomplish without the evilest of chemicals: dihydrogen monoxide. While this rebuttal is done in jest, this set's intentions do highlight the chilling growth of a new mentality: Chemicals are bad. Despite their omnipresence from the beginning of time, they are no longer safe. Even real researchers are starting to notice the possible voluntary stunting of science education that is occurring in the name of overreaching safety."
Safety? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think they're particularly worried about safety. What they are worried about is the perception that science kits can be used for making poisons and explosives. Today's political climate does not distinguish between having uncommon knowledge and having the intent to use it to do harm.
This is a very paranoid country (Score:1, Insightful)
When is doesn't have an external enemy, it begins searching for one.
This didn't start with 9/11, it goes back way before then.
If it can't find an external enemy, it looks within.
That's why we have >1% of our population in jail -- more than any other industrialized country.
That's why there's a camera on your street corner, and your cel phone tells the cops where you are, etc.
What do you call a government that does not trust its own citizens?
"Chemical" now a synonym for "toxin" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Chemical" has become a synonym for "toxin" in modern vernacular. Regrettably.
Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat (Score:4, Insightful)
"Oh well, I lost my moderations but I felt like saying this anyway. And don't blame me if some 'c's are missing, my key is a bit broken." -Cill
That is what people said about you (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, do you think is new? Did you hunt? Help a cow deliver a calf? Helping build the house? Make bread? Fix your own car and fully understand it, not clip in a new chip? Build your own radio?
I will tell you something very simple. My mother knew vi (no, not vim) better then I. To me it is the editor of choice in the shell, for her it was the latest tech. Used it NOT to edit some config files but to do office work in. Mail.
You are the pandered child to the generation before you.
And yet, it still works out.
Sheltered kids - Adults unable to function (Score:5, Insightful)
My father is a professional photographer. He studied in a time when photography started in the brain, not in the camera, and you had to develop the film and images yourself. When I was five or so, he gave me a bunch of lab-grade equipment to use as I please: beakers, Petri dishes, test tubes, a rack for them, cleaning equipment, graduated cylinders, glass pipettes (the kind they use in a real lab, with precise markings), the works.
It wasn't before long that the carpet in my bedroom had several stains and outright holes around the part where I played with the stuff. I mixed up all sorts of crazy stuff: glue from vegetable oil, some green acid that ate right through the carpet, and some sort of caustic foam from god knows what components comes to mind. My parents didn't mind it that much, because was learning. My father didn't even bat an eye when I took a mouthful of that green acid because I couldn't see it creep up in the pipette, he just told me that I should do that facing the light so I can see it. The caustic foam got all over my hand, yet my parents weren't suing anyone.
I was barely ten when I helped him develop film in the lab. If anyone did that before, they know that the stuff used is not kid-friendly, and can kill you in a heartbeat. Why didn't I die? Because I didn't fuck around with them. I did what my father told me to do, and didn't do what he told me not to do. I also had the common sense to approach stuff cautiously. I don't try stuff that looks dangerous just to see what happens.
There's probably a lesson in here for what appears to be the majority of American parents: kids need their freedom. Why not let him endanger himself a bit, just enough to teach him that it's not good. The more sheltered a child is, the less likely to be able to cope in the outside world. If the kid is allowed to explore and learn on its own, it'll become that much stronger and adaptable. Thus, removing 'dangerous chemicals' from a chem set is not the answer, nor is absurd supervision. The answer is to teach him properly.
Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends upon the nature of the bonding in the compound. For ionic compounds (such as your aluminium oxide example) numerical prefixes aren't used, as the charge of the two ions determines the ratio of them.
Covalent bonds don't work the same way. For instance you could have either Carbon Monoxide (CO) or Carbon Dioxide (CO2), so the information of how many oxygen atoms present is required to correctly identify the compound. In these cases, because carbon comes first, we don't need to specify monocarbon- as that is assumed by convention. In the case of dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) the di- prefix is used for the first word.
Water does of course present a little more of an interesting challenge, as it can be seen as many types of compounds. It can be seen as an ionic compound (where you'd call it hydrogen hydroxide), or as an acid (which would be hydroxilic acid), or as a covalently bonded compound. Oxygen dihydride may be the /more/ correct way to refer to it as a covalently bonded compound, but as the convention is to write the formula as H2O rather than OH2, I'd stand behind dihydrogen monoxide as the correct name.
Yes, IAAC.