PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
Skool Daze
The two grade 11 lads were fascinated to see a tiny bit of pure sodium violently react with water in a lab sink, the heat generating hydrogen, and skittering it across the surface.
One day they were given the lab as a study room. The two monkeys students dropped a much larger piece into the water. Its weight sent it to the bottom, where it produced a large bubble of hydrogen, and the heat to set it off.
The resulting small explosion doused them and the lab, wiped out overhead fluorescent fixtures, and blew a pencil case through a window.
***
Rochelle’s reminiscences about teachers, reminded me of this fact-based bit of high school hi-jinks. Go to her Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.
Hydrogen… the beginning of all the elements. The beginning of all material things in a way. Love this!
LikeLike
On this day, it was the beginning of an embarrassing minor disaster, a repair project for the school maintenance department, and a bill sent to some parents. Just a normal day in the life of teenaged boys. Glad you liked the look back at ‘my education.’ To be clear, I was writing a French exam at the time, but I learned from the mistakes of others. 😆
LikeLiked by 3 people
Boys will be would-be terrorists…
LikeLike
All of us get older. Some of us get smarter. Others just get to be insurance statistics. 😯
LikeLike
Boys! Well… maybe a few girls but 😉
LikeLike
Girls would do something like this??? No!… Girls are all sugar and spice – and the occasional catty comment.
What surprised everyone about this fiasco was that these two had the highest mark averages for males, in the class. 😯
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ummmm…. not all girls, yanno. I was never one to hang out with the catty girls. Had more fun hanging upside down on the monkey bars with the boys… And having a good average does not a good boy make 😉 Often times the smart ones are so bored, they choose ways to get into trouble! 😀
LikeLike
Must have been boys who did this! Great little story. 🙂
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
LikeLike
Probably one of the earliest examples of “Hold my beer, and watch this.” 👿
LikeLike
Ha, result 🙂
LikeLike
If no females are involved, is it still the result of teenage hormones??
Thanx for the visit. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great write.
LikeLike
I think that many of us have a ‘teen-aged boy’ story in us from our past. I’m just happy that Rochelle’s school reminiscences brought this one to the top of my mind, so that I could share. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You hit on something really interesting that was only discovered a little over 3 years ago. The sodium explodes BEFORE any hydrogen is produced! The process has been understood for a few decades and was demonstrated in the late 1950s on Continental Classroom, where I first saw it. It’s called electron solvation, and in the demo that I saw, the sodium turns liquid ammonia deep blue and as you add more, it turns bronze colored.
In the case of sodium and water, if there is a clean surface on the sodium, it releases its outer electron to the water molecules in an unusual chemical reaction that has only been recognized for a few decades, and in the case of water, the reaction is so violent the the current released exceeds the current in a lightning bolt, and the sodium blows itself apart.
It is only afterward that the electrons captured by the water have a chance to react and release hydrogen, often causing a secondary explosion.
Here is a video released by Phil Mason, who made the discovery while he was visiting a chemistry lab in Germany. His paper is listed in the video.
LikeLike
I’m always learning something. 55 years ago I learned not to put any piece of sodium, larger than a finger-nail clipping, into water. Today, I learned why not. Interesting, informative video! Thanx for the research. 🙂
LikeLike
Wow. After the comment just preceding mine, I’m feeling all intimidated. I was just going to say that I love the bit about the pencil case flying through the window. And your story was based on fact you say? Tut tut.
LikeLike
Oh, don’t feel badly. Daniel is one of two regulars who are great researchers.
Perhaps sadly, the pencil case is the only part of this story that is fiction, but I had to justify that strange protuberance in the photo. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Boys will be boys…duck, here comes a pencil case!
Click to read my FriFic tale!
LikeLike
That’s why the Darwin Award exists. 😳
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Archon,
My son and his friend once fried donuts in the back of the chemistry class. Fortunately they didn’t blow it up. Fun stuff, these memories.
Shalom,
Rochelle
LikeLike
I would be inclined to give an extra credit for ingenuity, but there’s always that fine, and difficult-to-locate, line at the edge of danger. 😯
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t chemistry fun? I love the pencil case, very imaginative interpretation of the picture.
LikeLike
I prefer the chemistry that occurs with X and Y chromosomes.
I’m pleased that you approve of my non-fiction fiction. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
A great sense of curiosity, those boys, so glad no one got hurt. I love chemistry! =)
LikeLike