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Deep Joy

aga - 5-4-2018 at 06:00

Oh the joy of opening today's parcels

A 250ml retort and a set of evaporating dishes.

The retort fits nicely with the brass mortar that came from a boot sale.

Let the Alchemy commence !

j_sum1 - 5-4-2018 at 06:16

Nice new toy.
Have some fun with this.

Sulaiman - 5-4-2018 at 09:33

This image popped into my head

the eagerness is due to the delay between small scale batches,
based on your tag line,
maybe you should have got one of these instead

Scale.jpg - 31kB

aga - 5-4-2018 at 10:30

That woodcut print shows a retort of the same size - the man is just very very small (a hormunculus no doubt)

Happy days with evaporating dishes !

Here's some calcium chloride solution getting boiled to bits as i type:

Dunno why i never bought an evap dish before.

It was a video by Akhil Jain that prompted me to get some - always boiled stuff in beakers up till now.

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

aga - 5-4-2018 at 10:47

In Alchemy-speak :

alchemist.png - 4kB

Strange - i could preview that as straight text, and it worked, then gave an error when i tried posting.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 11:36

How to tell if all the water that can evaporate has gone ?

Stick a watch glass over it - turn it over (and burn your fingers) if you see droplets.

Simples.

Amazed at how satisfying a small porcelain bowl can be.

happyfooddance - 5-4-2018 at 12:27

Quote: Originally posted by aga

How to tell if all the water that can evaporate has gone ?

Stick a watch glass over it - turn it over (and burn your fingers) if you see droplets.

Simples.

Amazed at how satisfying a small porcelain bowl can be.

Heating a small sample in a test-tube does the same thing, much more quickly. Same principle, though.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 12:34

The idea is to get the water Out, not see if there is any water present, which the test tube idea would show.

I got half a litre of aqueous liquid to boil down to a solid !

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

happyfooddance - 5-4-2018 at 12:45

Quote: Originally posted by aga

How to tell if all the water that can evaporate has gone ?

Stick a watch glass over it - turn it over (and burn your fingers) if you see droplets.

Quote: Originally posted by aga

The idea is to get the water Out, not see if there is any water present, which the test tube idea would show.

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

You are contradicting yourself.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 12:53

Nope : it's a Scale thing.

Heating a small sample in a test tube will show if there is water, as you rightly stated.

It will not remove the water from a whole pile of stuff.

The simple maths here is the small size of the test tube compared to half a litre of dissolved calcium chloride.

Edit:

Product-esque:

likely .2 H₂O at least, but happiness abounds !

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

happyfooddance - 5-4-2018 at 13:00

Well, if I can't explain to you the error of your linguistics, I can't explain anything to you.

Mind you, you are the same one who told me that heating the bejeesus out of a CaCl2 solution was NOT the way to go:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=78412#...

aga - 5-4-2018 at 13:15

As i recall, heating the bejeesus out of it IS the way to go.

Someone commented, from their Actual Experience, that they routinely heated it to above Melting Point to ensure there was no water.

Unlikely i'll ever need CaCl₂ THAT dry, for the forseeable future.

Anyone who never does anything at all (apart from comment on the actions of other people on websites) clearly will not need to go to that extreme either.

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

ELRIC - 5-4-2018 at 14:01

Hey aga, have you given that retort a go yet? Do you have any specific plans for it?

aga - 5-4-2018 at 14:05

I liked it so much i started the next batch.

Solid now, yet still stinks of SO₂, but that will go away soon.

Simple Pleasures are probably the Best.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 14:06

Quote: Originally posted by ELRIC

Hey aga, have you given that retort a go yet? Do you have any specific plans for it?

Not messed with it yet.

I have in mind a whole Alchemichal world of ideas for it.

Edit:

Basically a bunch of Alchemy, which is where Chemistry began.

The majority of Alchemy was discarded when some parts of it were found to be profitable.

That fraction of Alchemy we now call Chemistry.

There remains a lot more unexplored territory.

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

DraconicAcid - 5-4-2018 at 14:21

The majority of alchemy was discarded when it was found to not work, just like astrology and other superstitions.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 14:31

So much is lost when one imagines one knows it all.

Science still fails to bridge the gap between the Macro and the Micro.

Sadly the most prominent proponent of that challenge died recently.

If it is old bollocks or new bollocks, no matter - take from it what is of use.

happyfooddance - 5-4-2018 at 14:50

Aga, you do know that posting on sciencemadness is not the same as doing chemistry, right?

No???

I didn't think so.

aga - 5-4-2018 at 15:10

Quote: Originally posted by happyfooddance

Aga, you do know that posting on sciencemadness is not the same as doing chemistry, right?

No???

I didn't think so.

I appologise for posting photos of the stupid things i have done, many many times over.

The Science i have done was, well, worthless, compared to your frenzied typing.

If, God Willing, i can some day refrain from pointless Actual Work, i can become more like you.

If not, i may as well commit suicide, as just Doing Things and producing evidence of what i did isn't as real as just typing words into a computer, it's just some kind of happy food dance or some other weird spatial effect brought on by booze.

Thaks for the wake-up-call : obviously i need to stop Doing Anything and start focussing on virtual chat.

NOT.

Edit:

More calcium chloride boils away merrily.
No way any cock, none at all, can spoil today's Deep Joy

Ebay rarely delivers this large.

[Edited on 5-4-2018 by aga]

BromicAcid - 5-4-2018 at 15:11

I find it funny that a retort is about the only piece of glassware you can buy on the Aldrich site without an institutional account.

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/labware/labware-products.html?T...

aga - 5-4-2018 at 15:17

Check your account: could be that you Are in an Institution

(cue One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Music)

XeonTheMGPony - 5-4-2018 at 16:35

Like you aga I got a nice boost to the lab in the form of an old corning stirrer! but the real big bonus is it can be easily modded to hot plate and stirrer and more joy yet was got it for the same price as a new cheap Chinese stirrer!

Now if those damned stir bars would hurry up!

Is the retort fused quartz or standard boro?

AvBaeyer - 5-4-2018 at 18:17

Aga,

The photo you posted at the beginning is wonderful. The lighting and shadows are terrific. It looks like something that would have been on the cover of an Aldrich catalog.

I nominate your photo to be on the start page of ScienceMadness.

AvB

Texium - 5-4-2018 at 19:04

Although, it begs the question "why is aga about to crush up his new retort?"

LearnedAmateur - 6-4-2018 at 00:17

Quote: Originally posted by AvBaeyer

Aga,

The photo you posted at the beginning is wonderful. The lighting and shadows are terrific. It looks like something that would have been on the cover of an Aldrich catalog.

I nominate your photo to be on the start page of ScienceMadness.

AvB

That would be a wonderful idea, I love that picture. It’s like it’s bridging the gap between the old and new - modern technological spins on antiquated equipment, with the simple and clean look overall.

aga - 6-4-2018 at 11:16

Quote: Originally posted by AvBaeyer

The photo you posted at the beginning is wonderful. The lighting and shadows are terrific.

Well, that is unexpected !

Glad you like it. Certainly wasn't deliberate.

Contact Sigma and see if they want to buy it - we can go halves

As for crushing that beauty, no way !

It just fitted well in the brass mortar (or pestle - never can get those two straight)

LearnedAmateur - 6-4-2018 at 11:27

Mortar is the vessel itself, I just think of it like the mortar weapon, back when they were shorter and fatter they were quite reminiscent of the crushing-up version.

Mortar comes from Latin ‘mortarium’, which was a vessel for crushing. Pestle is from ‘pistillum’, directly translating to ‘pounder’. An interesting fact, the word mortar when used in a bricklaying sense, is derived from the Old French word for the bowl used to mix builder’s plaster - mortier.

97A64738-FA4B-4C51-A340-4182F36BFBCB.jpeg - 137kB

aga - 6-4-2018 at 11:38

Excellent explanation o Amateur of Learnedness.

Easy to remember too. Thanks.

Presumably 'mortier' also has it's roots in the same Latin word 'mortarium'.

LearnedAmateur - 6-4-2018 at 12:48

Looking it up, the name of the weapon actually comes from the bowl, didn’t even know that when I made the mental link. Makes sense on both the visual and linguistic side - one could interpret the weapon to be a ‘vessel of crushing’ since the original projectiles were stone, used as a siege engine before being converted to anti-personnel usage.

Seems that way, a vast number of words in Western European languages (antiquated and modern) have their roots in Latin and Greek, and the different etymological pathways is where, at least in English, a lot of homonyms are born - same meaning from the parent language but having been twisted throughout the course of history and the evolution of language.

aga - 6-4-2018 at 13:17

Fascinating - a vessel into which you place things to get crushed morphs into a vessel that throws a thing out that crushes.

Flipped meanings are not uncommon, yet it takes a mental leap to comprehend (In focused vs Out)