trevor (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} entropyman) wrote,@ 2006-08-18 16:07:00 |
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fun with chemistry
This lab story involves some fun with chemistry at one of my alma maters. And no, it's not another story about the grad students at UT trying to burn down the chemistry building. (I don't think they've had a single fire that's made the news in at least a year. They must be teaching those students something.)
Frank and Mike, I figured you guys would appreciate this.
Found here, which contains links to other fun lab stories.
[update]
I figured I'd add my most impressive True Lab Story, which is also a good example of calm under literal fire.
As an undergrad, I worked in a lab that was half biochem, half organic. I was working in the biochem half of the lab. One day I was in the organic lab talking to one of the grad students. Now, this was an organic synthesis lab, so there were lots of volatile solvents in the lab, and they had several distillation operations going constantly. As we were talking, another grad student was pouring ether from a 5 gallon jug into an Erlenmeyer that was either on a magnetic stirrer or a scale.
Well, the ether must have run over the edge of whatever it was sitting on and hit a hot wire because all of a sudden we see a big stream of fire running up the ether stream towards the jug. The student holding the jug calmly flung it across the room, which, scarily, happened to be in the direction of the 10-15 brown jugs of unidentifiable mixtures of decades old waste that seem to inhabit every lab in the UT chemistry building. So now we've got a fire running the length of the lab. The student calmly reaches over, grabs the fire extinguisher off the wall and puts out the fire. At that point, he notices that his arm is on fire, so he turns the extinguisher on himself and puts out his arm.
Now, our adviser's office was right next door to the lab, and this happened at the time of year when prospective grad students were visiting. He, unfortunately, happened to be talking to a prospective student at the time. At some point during this whole mess, they came out of his office and he was standing in the hall, looking into the lab, watching his student put out an ether fire, while the prospective student looks over his shoulder with a look of horror on her face. I don't think she came to UT, by the way.
After it was all over, and we had gotten the grad student off to the hospital, it sort of sunk in just how bad things could have been. Luckily, that grad student was calm and cool and got everything under control before something really bad happened.
And that's my True Lab Story.
This lab story involves some fun with chemistry at one of my alma maters. And no, it's not another story about the grad students at UT trying to burn down the chemistry building. (I don't think they've had a single fire that's made the news in at least a year. They must be teaching those students something.)
Frank and Mike, I figured you guys would appreciate this.
Found here, which contains links to other fun lab stories.
[update]
I figured I'd add my most impressive True Lab Story, which is also a good example of calm under literal fire.
As an undergrad, I worked in a lab that was half biochem, half organic. I was working in the biochem half of the lab. One day I was in the organic lab talking to one of the grad students. Now, this was an organic synthesis lab, so there were lots of volatile solvents in the lab, and they had several distillation operations going constantly. As we were talking, another grad student was pouring ether from a 5 gallon jug into an Erlenmeyer that was either on a magnetic stirrer or a scale.
Well, the ether must have run over the edge of whatever it was sitting on and hit a hot wire because all of a sudden we see a big stream of fire running up the ether stream towards the jug. The student holding the jug calmly flung it across the room, which, scarily, happened to be in the direction of the 10-15 brown jugs of unidentifiable mixtures of decades old waste that seem to inhabit every lab in the UT chemistry building. So now we've got a fire running the length of the lab. The student calmly reaches over, grabs the fire extinguisher off the wall and puts out the fire. At that point, he notices that his arm is on fire, so he turns the extinguisher on himself and puts out his arm.
Now, our adviser's office was right next door to the lab, and this happened at the time of year when prospective grad students were visiting. He, unfortunately, happened to be talking to a prospective student at the time. At some point during this whole mess, they came out of his office and he was standing in the hall, looking into the lab, watching his student put out an ether fire, while the prospective student looks over his shoulder with a look of horror on her face. I don't think she came to UT, by the way.
After it was all over, and we had gotten the grad student off to the hospital, it sort of sunk in just how bad things could have been. Luckily, that grad student was calm and cool and got everything under control before something really bad happened.
And that's my True Lab Story.
