Boom Today

[billroper]

By way of johnridley, this entertaining video that shows what happens when you add alkali metals to water. In the case of lithium, sodium, and potassium, not so much. Rubidium and cesium, on the other hand...

Comments

[mdlbear]

Impressive.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'll have to wait until I get to the high-speed connection at school Monday to watch the video, but I have to say that I have a nice little scar an inch below my left eye that says more than "not much" happens when you add water to sodium with a garden hose from ten feet away.

That said, I look forward to watching. Thanks for the link.

[drawshad.livejournal.com]

Watching stuff like that makes me think I picked the wrong career. Blowing Things Up would be WAY COOL!

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

Having seen the tiny bit of sodium in water thing done several times, my advice is not to do it. Half the time, not much happens, the other half, POP! and I hope no one's eye was in the way. Done on a bigger scale, it's always exciting and should be viewed from a safe distance. Which is quite a long way away. There are videos on the Internet.

I once saw an old film of this same sort of thing, going down the column, but done in a Serious Educational Manner. It was still really cool. Blowing up bathtubs, though, is even better.