On 24/07/13 04:53, Jim Mooney wrote:
On 23 July 2013 07:28, Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote:
(I trust that everyone remembers enough high school chemistry to
understand why Mercurial is called hg? Hg is the chemical symbol for
Mercury.)
And I recall my high school chemistry teacher claiming the noble gases
could never combine, until someone just decided to cook up some Xenon
Tetraflouride. Always fun when you get to contradict your teacher in class,
and you're right - wel it was then. I'm a tad more mature, now - sometimes
;')
Completely off-topic, you may get a kick out of "Things I Won't Work With",
where a professional chemist periodically writes about chemical compounds that he won't
work with for various reasons:
- chemicals that set fire to sand, bricks, and asbestos;
- chemicals that stink so unbearably that fogging the air with nitric oxide
actually *improves* the air quality;
- chemicals that detonate at -300°F;
- chemicals so explosive that mixing them with TNT makes them more stable;
- solutions that become more dangerous rather than less when you put them in
the freezer;
- chemicals more reactive than elemental fluorine -- some of which are made
*from* elemental fluorine;
- and chemicals which have short-term acute toxic effects, long-term chronic
toxic effects if you survive the acute ones, and are carcinogenic if you
survive the chronic toxicity.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/
--
Steven
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