Mercury thermometer + school = LOCKDOWN!

[Rangerscott]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/educati...es-say/1264539

[OneSickPsycho]

Holy fucking stupid Batman.

[Gas Man]

Originally Posted by OneSickPsycho

Holy fucking stupid Batman.

[Papa_Complex]

Bloody idiots would faint dead-away if they knew what we did with UNCONTAINED mercury, back when I was in high school.

[njchopper87]

The mercury came in thermometers, Marquez said, but it was unclear what the lithium and sodium were brought in.

Uh.. batteries? Salt?

It's just pathetic they pull stunts like this..

[jtemple]

Originally Posted by njchopper87

Uh.. batteries? Salt?

It's just pathetic they pull stunts like this..

Pure sodium (not table salt) explodes when it comes in contact with water.

Lithium also reacts pretty vigorously with water.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by jtemple

Pure sodium (not table salt) explodes when it comes in contact with water.

Lithium also reacts pretty vigorously with water.

Exothermic reaction that liberates hydrogen from water, because it's stripping the oxygen out of it. Makes for nice fireworks. A one gram cube will paint the ceiling.

[Adeptus_Minor]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Exothermic reaction that liberates hydrogen from water, because it's stripping the oxygen out of it. Makes for nice fireworks. A one gram cube will paint the ceiling.

I had that discussion with my Earth Science teacher freshman year of high school.
We were studying the alkali metals and she was going to show us the ever-popular water reaction. This would have been great, but she got the reactions of potassium and lithium mixed up. She was saying potassium would just skitter along the surface of the water, but the lithium would burn.
I had read ahead in the text and remembered potassium having the more violent reaction.
She insisted she was right so we just let it go. About 10 seconds into the demonstration, the potassium had gone from fizzing to burning and then *POP*... painted ceiling, as you say.
Getting an "I told you so" on a science teacher is sooo gratifying.

[goof2]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Bloody idiots would faint dead-away if they knew what we did with UNCONTAINED mercury, back when I was in high school.

No doubt, if someone messed with mercury today like back when I was in school they would close the building permanently and declare it a superfund site.

[Hydrant]

Stupid, and sad.

I used to have a baby food jar full of mercury. We would take the bulbs out of thermostats break them and put the mercury in the jar.