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In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

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Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#91

Post by giardini »

slavak wrote: post #7

Apparently the first half of the 20th century was fucking awesome [1]. [1] http://www.cracked.com/article_19481_the-8-most-wildly-irres...

Are there statistics that show us how hazardous such products were? I doubt that many were injured by them.

We had chemistry sets and carbide cannons, played with mercury, painted with red lead, and cleaned spots off clothing with benzene. I have inadvertently taken a swig of gasoline. We played with firecrackers, cherry bombs, roman candles and rockets. We were always lectured on safety first and took those lessons to heart.

I honestly can't say that I learned anything useful from the chemistry set (although at the time I believed it was an absolute necessity, something I regret putting my parents through). OTOH work in chemistry labs as an adult confirmed that I was not inclined to that profession.

But from each particular encounter I learned interesting and useful facts which could later be tied into the theoretical frameworks of formal physics and chemistry.

Odd thing is I wasn't allowed a BB gun until I was 16! I never shot a living thing with it - it was simply fun to hit something at a distance. Anyway I'm still alive and doing better than ever.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#92

Post by powertower »

bane wrote: post #82
powertower wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was growing up in the former USSR, we used to sometimes enter the decommissioned parts of a nuclear plant / research station. One day we found what was a deuterium/water solution ("heavy water") in a storage locker and took several gulps of it to prove something stupid. Beat that!

Did it taste like anything?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

An early experiment reported not the "slightest difference" in taste between ordinary and heavy water; on the other hand, rats given a choice between distilled normal water and heavy water were able to avoid the heavy water based on smell, and it may be possible that it has a different taste.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#93

Post by giardini »

moylan wrote: post #27

i grew up with a copy of 'the boy electrician' that my father born in 1921 had. it showed how to build an xray machine from 'commonly available' parts. the only warning was a brief note that long exposure caused blood vessels to break which looked like bruising. though this warning is missing from the 1913 version. i do know that the plans were removed from later 1930ish versions. i'd say that there were at least 1-2…

I have a 1940 copy of "The Boy Electrician" given to me as a boy by the librarians when our small-town library closed. It includes a section on X-rays ("[X-ray tubes] usually cost about four dollars and a half.") and shows how to connect the tube to a spark coil, how to make a fluoroscope and how to make photographs with X-rays. No warnings are present!

This is a wonderful book because it covers so much ground and the writing and drawings give a physical sense of the topics: static electricity, magnetism, electrochemical cells, induction and capacitance, even semiconductors (cat's whisker detectors and selenium photocells).

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#94

Post by eru »

timr wrote: post #59
jpdoctor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just pulled cells out of discarded car batteries that I found while playing on a construction site Dodging the acid in the lead-acid batteries?! Now that is dedication. I raise my cup (of coffee) to you in honor of your superior talent for self-destruction.

If the batteries are dead/discharged, the pH is fairly high. In any case, you can easily neutralize it with a little baking soda.

Or limestone.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#95

Post by eru »

giardini wrote: post #91
slavak wrote: post #7

Apparently the first half of the 20th century was fucking awesome [1]. [1] http://www.cracked.com/article_19481_the-8-most-wildly-irres...

Are there statistics that show us how hazardous such products were? I doubt that many were injured by them. We had chemistry sets and carbide cannons, played with mercury, painted with red lead, and cleaned spots off clothing with benzene. I have inadvertently taken a swig of gasoline. We played with firecrackers, cherry bombs, roman candles and rockets. We were always lectured on safety first and took those lessons…

> Anyway I'm still alive and doing better than ever.

Probably survivorship bias.

Anyway, there was also an article in the New Yorker, I believe, about a guy and his father, grandfather and his son. He put up a map and showed how much each person was allowed to roam on their own at age 6. His grandfather walked five miles for fishing. His son isn't allowed to cross the road on his own.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#96

Post by datasink »

jordan0day wrote: post #52
rdtsc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah vinegar and soda is now the most exciting stuff you can get for kids' science experiments. Not many people mind kids playing contact sports, getting concussions, broken ligaments, but when it comes to stuff like this is "Oh, no! Hide all the science equipment, we don't want them to burn their little fingers on the Bunsen burners".

This is a really good point, actually. (I'm hypothesizing here) Since to so many people so much of what they call "science" is basically magic, all of it seems much too dangerous. Especially now that most things in a halfway decent chemistry kit are probably banned or closely scrutinized by the government.

I think the riskier chemicals that might be included in a chemistry kit aren't today because of the potential for lawsuits. It's also probably a lot cheaper to produce a chemistry kit with non-toxic chemicals.

The US government doesn't care much about the chemicals that might be reasonably used for chemistry experiments. The DEA watchlist is pretty specific and I don't believe the DHS/FBI/ATF are going after people buying small quantities of chemicals that have legitimate uses.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#97

Post by danneu »

meric wrote: post #79
danneu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated highschool in 2007 and science class was devoid of experimentation. I remember there being a bunch of hype months in advance for a day where we just watched our teacher do something with a bunsen burner. I don't remember what she did with it, but it was undoubtedly within the realm of making food-dyed water boil over a flame.

I graduated highschool in 2007 and "luckily" our chemistry teacher assessed us with our bunsen burner skills every fortnight. We basically put all sorts of chemicals and heat them up; recognize what materials depending on color of the flame; create compounds from different elements; etc... Once some of that stuff splashed into my eye, after the burner was turned off and I took off my goggles. Off to the eye wash I we…

Oh, man. The eye wash tower. An eye washer and a shower rolled into one pipe that extended from the floor to the ceiling. The thought of ever working with a substance that could validate suburbia's property tax spent on those things was the subject of every kid's daydreams during science class. Or that poster of that girl with the seeing stick that said something like "Karen didn't wear her goggles. But now she doesn't need to anymore." Gee, Karen, I remember muttering, I'd at least like a shot at danger.

Six bunsen burners, test tube racks built into the three sinks, and an eye wash tower in each science classroom of my youth. Yet the only thing I remember doing in four years of highschool is an over-chaperoned field trip with drug dogs and watching baking soda, vinegar, and water expand a balloon (goggles on, of course).

Might as well teach class in a Willy Wonka factory but feed us celery all four years.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#98

Post by jordan0day »

datasink wrote: post #96
jordan0day wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point, actually. (I'm hypothesizing here) Since to so many people so much of what they call "science" is basically magic, all of it seems much too dangerous. Especially now that most things in a halfway decent chemistry kit are probably banned or closely scrutinized by the government.

I think the riskier chemicals that might be included in a chemistry kit aren't today because of the potential for lawsuits. It's also probably a lot cheaper to produce a chemistry kit with non-toxic chemicals. The US government doesn't care much about the chemicals that might be reasonably used for chemistry experiments. The DEA watchlist is pretty specific and I don't believe the DHS/FBI/ATF are going after people b…

That's a very good point that I hadn't considered.

Re: In 1951 there was a children's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab playset for $50

#99

Post by dquigley »

jonmrodriguez wrote: post #86
dquigley wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe most high schools have gotten that way, but I had a very different experience. Made some chemical mixture in Chemistry that would go up in a puff if it was bumped. In my high school engineering classes, we stripped the motor out of a CNC router, attached a custom built head on it and then connected that router's computer to another control box we used to control two robotic arms, a conveyor belt, and a couple o…

Your experience was extremely expensive and therefore not scalable to a nation where many highschools can barely afford teachers, sadly. In the 1950's, teacher labor was subsidized by the fact that it was one of the few intellectual jobs available to gifted females.

I realize the experience I described cost quite a bit, but for some context, our high school was in a blue collar town. We several neighboring high schools in white collar towns, that didn't have what we had (and in fact were sending a few of their students to our school to participate in these classes). Instead they had fancier sports teams and facilities than we did. It was a matter of prioritizing money and energy, not necessarily spending more of it.
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