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.
Archon's Den 
Hydrogen… the beginning of all the elements. The beginning of all material things in a way. Love this!
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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. 😆
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Boys will be would-be terrorists…
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All of us get older. Some of us get smarter. Others just get to be insurance statistics. 😯
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Boys! Well… maybe a few girls but 😉
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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. 😯
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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! 😀
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Must have been boys who did this! Great little story. 🙂
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Probably one of the earliest examples of “Hold my beer, and watch this.” 👿
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Ha, result 🙂
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If no females are involved, is it still the result of teenage hormones??
Thanx for the visit. 🙂
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Great write.
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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. 🙂
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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.
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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. 🙂
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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.
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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. 🙂
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Boys will be boys…duck, here comes a pencil case!
Click to read my FriFic tale!
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That’s why the Darwin Award exists. 😳
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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
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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. 😯
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Isn’t chemistry fun? I love the pencil case, very imaginative interpretation of the picture.
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I prefer the chemistry that occurs with X and Y chromosomes.
I’m pleased that you approve of my non-fiction fiction. 🙂
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A great sense of curiosity, those boys, so glad no one got hurt. I love chemistry! =)
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