Theodore Gray's Completely Mad Science

Why did I write this book?

Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, father of the computer revolution, was known in his youth for setting off homemade nitroglycerine along Sand Hill Road, then a pasture, now the heart of the Silicon Valley that he helped build. When the great doctor and writer Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, Uncle Tungsten) was growing up in London during the Second World War, his chemical experiments threatened his family's home as much as the German bombs falling around it.

Look into the past of any scientist, leader, rich nerd or football hero, anyone who's done something interesting in life, and you will find more curiosity, adventure, hard work, and questionable judgment than you will find high marks for neatness or time spent watching TV.

And for better or worse, the fire, smoke, smells and bangs of chemistry are what inspired many scientists to become scientists in the first place. This stuff is fun, no other way to put it. But it's also dangerous enough that it's been mostly banned from schools. Many chemistry teachers would love to show their students some of the things they did when they were in school, but they value their jobs too much.

This book, and the Popular Science column it's based on, are a response to that. Many of the topics I write about are things I did when I was growing up, and I survived. Without those experiences I might have ended up as a stock broker, or worse.

Science is not something practiced only in labs and universities. It's a way of looking at the world and seeing truth and beauty everywhere. It's something you can do whether you are employed as a professional scientist or not. While I have a degree in chemistry from a fine university, I've never worked as a professional chemist. I do these demonstrations in my shop on a rural farmstead half a mile from the nearest neighbor. (This is handy when exploring the louder aspects of chemistry.) Mostly I use simple kitchen and shop supplies and chemicals from the hardware store or garden center. I do avoid working in a real lab, because I would much rather tinker in my shop and find a simpler (some might say cruder) way of making the experiment work. Amateur scientists, many of them self-taught, tinkering in their shops and basements have done great things. Using a spirit of making do with what they have and seeing just how far they can take it, they make real contributions to the advancement of science.

But what's even more important is that everyone, regardless of their occupation, understand how science works and what it can and can't do. We are not going to solve the energy crisis, climate change, or water shortage by wishful thinking or by watching commercials paid for by lobbyists. We are going solve them by understanding the issues and supporting policies that actually work. There is one and only one way to make the right choice, and that is by using the scientific method to define, study, and understand the problems and the solutions. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

In this book I've tried to capture the fun and sense of adventure that comes with science, as well as its truth and beauty. I hope that you, even if you never actually try these experiments, catch the excitement and get a bit of a window into how scientific thinking works.

I had fun doing this stuff. I hope you have as much fun reading about it.

Real warnings vs. the-lawyer-made-us-do-it warnings

It makes me cringe when I see warnings to wear gloves and safety glasses while working with baking soda. It's called crying wolf, and it's deeply irresponsible, because it makes it that much harder to get through to people about real dangers.

So I'm not going to do that. If you promise to listen, I promise to tell you the truth about where the real dangers are.

Some of the experiments in this book I would have let my kids do unsupervised when they were 10 years old (if not for the monumental messes that would lead to). If you're pouring a cold sodium acetate solution into a bowl, you are not going to get hurt, at least not by the sodium acetate. It's actually less toxic than common table salt, so unless you keep the salt in your house locked up and wear safety glasses for breakfast, you don't need to worry about sodium acetate.

Some other chemicals, however, are not your friends. Chlorine gas kills, and you hurt the whole time you're dying. Mix phosphorus and chlorates wrong and they blow up while you're mixing them. (I have a friend who still has tiny slivers of glass coming out of his hands twenty years after he made that particular mistake.)

Every chemical, every procedure, every experiment has its own unique set of dangers, and over the years people have learned (the hard way) how to deal with them. In many cases the only way to do an experiment safely is to find a more experienced person to help. This is not book-learning, it's your life at stake and you want someone by your side who knows what they are doing. There is an unbroken chain of these people leading right back to the first guy who survived, and you want to be part of that chain.

When I do an experiment that looks crazy I either have someone with me who's done it before, or it's something that I've worked my way up to slowly and carefully. I build in layers of safety, and I make sure that if all else fails I have a clear path to run like hell (and of course I wear glasses at all times).

I have never been seriously hurt by a chemical, and luck is not a factor in that. Don't make it a factor in your own safety either.

Should you actually try these experiments?

"Don't try this at home, kids!" Depending on your personality, that's either a warning or an invitation. I hate it because it tells people to be helpless—to believe that they are not smart enough, competent enough or persistent enough to do what "the experts" can do.

At the same time, it frightens me to think of someone picking up this book and ending up dead, burned or blind because of something I wrote, or a warning I didn't write. Some of these experiments would be just plain nuts for you to try. Seriously nuts.

Why nuts for you and not for me? Because each of us has a particular set of talents, experiences, friends and equipment. I do only things I know I can do safely. The things I didn't think I could do safely are not in this book, because I didn't do them.

For example, I saw a video of some guys who have learned to jump off huge cliffs wearing tiny wingsuits. They soar down the side of the mountain inches away from the ground and pull their parachutes at the last possible second. Are they nuts? Actually not; the ones who have survived this sport (many have not) are cautious people in their own slightly insane way. They started out trying to stay as far away from the cliff face as possible, until that got "boring."

A couple of the experiments in this book are in that category: things you can do safely only by edging up to them slowly and learning from the mistakes of others. They are not beginner experiments, just as jumping off a cliff in a wingsuit is not beginner skydiving.

Which brings me to an important point:

THIS BOOK DOES NOT TELL YOU ENOUGH TO DO ALL OF THE EXPERIMENTS SAFELY!

Some of the experiments you should be able to do safely using just the instructions in this book, combined with common sense and a modest amount of effort. But in many cases the steps are not detailed enough to allow you to do the experiment. They are there simply to illustrate in a general way how the experiment is done. A lot of experience is needed to fill in the blanks.

Please be honest with yourself in assessing whether you have the knowledge and experience needed before trying any of the experiments for real. Your safety depends on it, just as my safety depends on my knowing that, as fun as it might look, I should not jump off a cliff in a wingsuit anytime soon.

If you never read any warnings, please read this:

WEAR SAFETY GLASSES!

Nearly every experiment in this book has the potential to blind you. You have only two eyes, and they're close to each other: One splash of acid, and you're shopping for a cane.

I'm lucky to be so nearsighted that I have no choice but to wear glasses all the time. If you aren't, then you need to make the effort to get a good, comfortable pair of safety glasses. Not the cheap, crappy kind you're not going to wear, but some good ones that won't scratch and fog up all the time. They're only about $10 at a good home center or hardware store. Buy several so you can always find a pair. Wear them. Please, for my sake, wear them because I really, really don't want to get a letter from the mother of a kid who will never see his mother again.