sdxfcgvzdxfcgvhzdxfcgvhbjnkmlcgvhbjnk science
#the reason that lab safety regulations are the way they are is because literally all chemists are like this #as in 100% of them #no exceptions (via @prokopetz)
My grade 7 science teacher told a dazzling tale of how his friend in university stole a chunk of one of those pyrophoric metals—potassium? Magnesium?—from the lab, wrapped it up in brown paper towels, and made out like a bandit.
And then went to gloat over his acquisition and opened up the towels. Which had absorbed enough of the oil the metal was stored in to prevent it from reacting with any spare oxygen in the air.
So it started to react and my teacher's friend freaked out and realized he was going to get caught and get in trouble. And in a panic, he ran to the bathroom and flushed it down a toilet. A brilliant strategy, is it not, for disposing of a chemical that reacts somewhat to air, but whose characteristic interaction with water is generally described as "violent"?
Anyway, if you don't want to get caught stealing lab supplies, go off-campus so you don't blow up one of your own university's toilets. Connecting the dots there is not an insurmountable challenge.





















