MR AZIDE
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BBC RADIO 4, Nostalgia on chemistry sets broadcast.
The almighty broadcaster BBC, has a radio programme that was Broadcast yesterday, about nostalgia on the chemistry set that any young experimenter
desired and enjoyed back in the day, and probably how most of them are now pathetic due to paranoid health and safety nuts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l7wv0
It may only be available to UK people, though due to policy.
Im just going to listen to it now via the 'i player'.
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DDTea
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I was just reading something about this on BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19050342
Definitely in the vein of this discussion board. Comments on that article generally mirror what members here would say, that today's chemistry sets
are "sterile and uninspiring."
"In the end the proud scientist or philosopher who cannot be bothered to make his thought accessible has no choice but to retire to the heights in
which dwell the Great Misunderstood and the Great Ignored, there to rail in Olympic superiority at the folly of mankind." - Reginald Kapp.
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Vargouille
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I can attest that it works for me in Florida, so it should work in the rest of the US. Also, I noticed that they included audio bits from members of
Periodic Table of Videos. Quite nice.
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MR AZIDE
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Quote: Originally posted by Vargouille  | | I can attest that it works for me in Florida, so it should work in the rest of the US. Also, I noticed that they included audio bits from members of
Periodic Table of Videos. Quite nice. |
Nice to year you guys in the US might be able to hear it.!!!.......but its only available for a week from first broadcasting......so a computer boffin
had better copy and paste it somewhere.!!
I heard Martyn Poliakoff on the program( periodic videos, LOVE those videos!!), reminding that one of the universal memories most fowk have, even if
they aren't into chemistry now is the ' brilliant Blue Of CuSO4.'
I prefer the red of Cobalt (II) chloride myself though.
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Rogeryermaw
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i was able to listen to it as well.
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malcolmf
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| Quote: Originally posted by MR AZIDE |
Nice to year you guys in the US might be able to hear it.!!!.......but its only available for a week from first broadcasting......so a computer boffin
had better copy and paste it somewhere.!!
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"boffin" is an exaggeration. The program get_iplayer takes about a minute to grab a copy for reference. Any suggestions for a location to
copy/paste to?
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Vargouille
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Perhaps upload it to mediafire or a similar site?
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Hexavalent
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Ahhh....nostalgia...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Equip-From-a-1940s-Chemistry-Set-f...
"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill
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Dave Angel
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Nice find MR AZIDE. Worth listening to if only because at one point the Cambridge Historian of Science guy states that potassium
nitrate "is an explosive"... Oh dear.
As Vargouille suggested, I have used mediafire to create a shared copy:
http://www.mediafire.com/?xrz1ceabv9iahtw
Please forgive the low quality - I have little experience with stream ripping and have gone for a low quality on-the-fly encoding for minimal file
size. And let me know if there are any problems with the link - I can always email it; just drop me a PM.
And speaking of nostalgia Hexavalent, I was gifted with the remains of a relative's childhood chemistry set some time ago, so here's
a couple of nostalgic shots:
The vials recovered are labelled:
Slaked Lime (Calcium Hydroxide)
Litmus Powder
Sodium Bisulphite
Alum
Log Wood
Magnesium Sulphate
Charcoal Decolourising
Copper Oxide
Manganese Sulphate
Sodium Sulphate
Sodium Borate
I have a feeling the most 'exciting' chemicals were selectively used by my relative!
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triplepoint
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Mr. Azide: I, too am contemptuous of the current Luddite trend toward demonizing all scientific inquiry as dangerous and suspicious. However, I like
to read old amateur science experiment books, and some of them did go too far in the other direction. I read one recently, don't recall whether it
was a textbook. In order to learn about the characteristics of compounds, it advocated things like touching NaOH to observe the slippery feeling it
produces on the skin and tasting it to observe the sour taste. I am not a safety nut, but I think that advice did not encourage a healthy respect for
the potential hazards of chemistry.
Lest I come off as too preachy or whiny, I will admit to tasting the NaCl produced when I heated and disproportionated bleach into salt and sodium
chlorate. (it tasted salty). I just think stuff like that needs to be a judgment call, after learning when it is reasonable to go a little off the
beaten path.
[Edited on 8-12-2012 by triplepoint]
[Edited on 8-12-2012 by triplepoint]
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malcolmf
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| Quote: Originally posted by Dave Angel |
As Vargouille suggested, I have used mediafire to create a shared copy:
http://www.mediafire.com/?xrz1ceabv9iahtw
Please forgive the low quality - I have little experience with stream ripping and have gone for a low quality on-the-fly encoding for minimal file
size. And let me know if there are any problems with the link - I can always email it; just drop me a PM.
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Ah right. I was not at all familiar with mediafire, but mediafire turned out to be much simpler than I expected. So I finally got around to it and
sorted out the conversion from my iplayer aac file to mp3.
This should be higher quality, but it's about 4× the size of Dave's, if anyone wants to archive it somewhere:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?88i2g2bag8k4kqa
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