
Scientists Back Kiera Wilmot by Tweeting About All the Stuff They've Blown Up - jamesbritt
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/05/scientists_back_kiera_wilmot_b.php
======
jerrya
I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk
kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science
demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told a
gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been safely
installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD Bomb Squad
(on my behalf.)

I was uh, fingered by our Physics professor who ran into me before graduation,
and said, "Jerry, what did you do?"

Was pulled off the grad night school bus just before it left for a talk with
Nick the Narc, Principal, and LAPD.

We talked for a bit, I explained I hadn't done anything terribly unique,
pissed them off by telling them I copied my designs from the Rockford Files
(google it), and then they sent me off to Disneyland with the rest of my
graduating class.

(Had I known how popular that made me on the bus that night, I would have done
it sooner.)

Went to college, found one other engineering student in my small class of
engineering students that had done practically the same thing I had done the
same week within the same state.

This was back before zero tolerance of course, and back before GWOT, and back
before we decided we had to burn down our own village in order to save our
village.

Back when folks grew a sense of humor.

So Kiera, I think what is being done to you is a gross abuse.

~~~
rurounijones
I really cannot parse that first paragraph, can anyone translate? (Or OP
change it)

~~~
davidcuddeback
> _I "invited" the LAPD Bomb Squad to my High School Graduation when some punk
> kid crawling on a roof he was not authorized to be on found a little science
> demonstration a friend and I had set up for the time of graduation and told
> a gym teacher who took the science demonstration from where it had been
> safely installed and placed it in his enclosed office and called the LAPD
> Bomb Squad (on my behalf.)_

"Punk kid" was crawling on a roof. He was not authorized to be on said roof.
He found the OP's science demonstration that he set up on the roof to go off
during graduation. The "punk kid" told a gym teacher, who contained the
experiment to his office and called the LAPD. The bomb squad arrived to
investigate.

~~~
jerrya
(Where science demonstration is probably something like fireworks, skyrockets,
roman candles, m-80s, but OP is being vague, so we can't be sure.)

------
noonespecial
I put a little salt water in a 3 liter bottle (remember those... Shasta, baby)
and melted 2 wires through the cap. I connected those to a 12 volt battery and
let that cook until it was good and bulging, flipped it over and then used the
firing coil from a motocycle to make a spark between the wires.

It made a much bigger boom than we had expected. I believe the hole in the
ground it left was nearly 2 feet deep. I think I was 13.

~~~
gavinlynch
Right. But you didn't do it during school.

edit: Do I really need to point out that 2 felonies for this is obviously a
gross overreaction by authorities and I hope all charges are dropped? That
said, if you don't agree that it was universally horrible judgement to make a
drano bomb during school, then there really isn't much to discuss between us
and you can carry on downvoting (although I hope none of you are in charge of
my future children). my longform response:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5651593>

~~~
marssaxman
Oh, come on, having horrible judgement is the whole point of being a kid. The
process of growing up and becoming an adult is all about learning and
acquiring good judgement. How can you expect people to gain the judgement that
comes with experience without allowing them to gain that experience by trying
things, some of which will turn out to be mistakes? How are they supposed to
know which things are going to be the mistakes without trying some of them and
thereby learning the patterns?

I once did more or less the same thing as Ms Wilmot did, and you bet I did it
during school, and I didn't even bother to tell anyone about my intentions
first! I set up an apparatus under one of the fume hoods in the back of the
chemistry lab, dissolved a bunch of aluminum, captured the hydrogen in a
balloon, and then blew the whole thing up. It made a hell of a big bang,
shattered a bunch of glassware, and startled the hell out of my lab-mates. Bad
judgement? Well, yeah. Duh. But I didn't actually hurt anyone, and I sure
learned something from the experience, and I'll bet that all my classmates
learned something from it too, without having to deal with the embarrassment
and clean-up that landed on my shoulders for being the nitwit who tried it.

Just imagine how fucked I'd have been if I'd had to face felony charges after
that. My whole life might have been different, my whole software engineering
career derailed before it had even started. What a stupid waste that would
have been. What a stupid waste it is going to be for all of us if this idiotic
treatment of Ms Wilmot is allowed to stand.

~~~
gavinlynch
Did you read my post? I do not agree with these felony charges at all. I don't
know what the reprimand should be, whether it's a lecture or 1 detention or
expulsion. But I know the felony charges are wrong based on the few facts we
currently have.

~~~
marssaxman
I did read your post, and I don't agree that any formal reprimand was
necessary. What did she do that deserves punishment? She found chemistry so
interesting that she went beyond her classes and came up with her own
experiment, which taught her something she hadn't expected. Cool! Give her
extra credit, put her in AP classes, sign her up for community college - this
is exactly the kind of curiosity and independent initiative we need to
_encourage_ , not punish.

~~~
HCIdivision17
I think that was gavinlynch's point: there's got to be some kind of
discipline, but a felony is insane. And by discipline, I'd imagine something
like what happened to you would be reasonable.

"Ok, someone could have gotten hurt. Be more careful next time, and now clean
up your mess!" With the severity of the lecture following the actual damage.

Kids should be encouraged to involve themselves with the immensely powerful
forces so easily available today - but they've got to fear it (as in respect
it). They need to know how destructive it can be, and then _harness that_.
That's my $0.02 on it.

~~~
jacalata
In the abstract, the severity of the lecture should not necessarily follow the
actual damage - sometimes it should follow the potential for damage, perhaps?
For instance, when I was a kid, I ran out into the road to chase a ball. A car
stopped about 1 meter from me. Nobody and nothing was hurt (unless you count
terrifying the driver and my mother on the sidewalk watching). Was I in
trouble? Hell yes. If my mother had said 'well, nobody was hurt, no problem'
then how was I supposed to learn how stupid it was?

~~~
HCIdivision17
Yup, you're right. In industry, that's called a near miss. It's treated with
the motions as though you were hit by that car, but none of the consequences
are enacted, since nothing in fact happened (YMMV). Basically, it's a freebie:
lessons are learned without anyone getting hurt, which is about as good as it
gets.

~~~
Ergomane
Near misses must be analysed and acted upon to be a useful force in accident
or disaster prevention. Such actions can include changes to the facility,
changes to protocol, but also educating or punishing workers.

As an example: Misconduct causing a near miss, such as smoking or using open
fire near chemical storage, is grounds for instant dismissal, even in the
"socialist" countries of NW Europe.

------
pessimism
I’ll make an exception to being vague about my personal details (although this
is my personal HN account) and chime in with something eerily relevant.

At my school, we literally had a chemistry teacher who went by the name Bombe
Bo ( _Bob the Bomber_ , if you fancy a quasi-translation of the Danish
moniker). The teachers amiably called him by the name as well—possibly because
he once set an adult’s hair on fire during one of his experiments.

He was, is, possibly the most beloved teacher at the school, and he was known
for—you guessed it!—blowing things up. The man would seize any opportunity to
make something go boom, and we all loved him for it.

At our final class with him before graduation, he assigned his students to
mix, I believe, bromide and acetone (and some). The students just saw it as
another experiment, but as some of you have already realized

    
    
        ... unbeknownst to them, the students
        had created tear gas!
    

To add insult to injury, he had brought a camera to snap photos of everyone’s
faces. The guy was a black-belt in pranks.

It was inconceivable for students not to love the guy—he was also one of the
nicest people in the world and never had to scold anyone—ever. Because as hard
as the course material could be, it was impossible to hate him—and chemistry.

~~~
MertsA
Wow, that's pretty funny that your chemistry teacher would go so far as to
violate the Geneva convention for the sake of a prank.

~~~
mynameisvlad
I'm sorry, what? How in the world does an international convention on warfare
apply to a high school experiment?

~~~
shabble
Meant in the spirit of
[http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-
chem...](http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/01/07/domestic-chemical-
warfare/), I presume.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Alright that makes more sense. I totally haven't read that, and it got a
chuckle out of me. :)

------
gavinlynch
This is a page out of the anarchists cookbook. Ah, to be young again... ;)

But seriously, unless this was sanctioned, why the hell would you be doing
this at school?? She wasn't at the flippin' science fair, how exactly did she
expect all this to go down? Did she expect the teaching staff to give her a
standing ovation for successfully making a "drano bomb" on campus? You do it
in the vacant lot across the street, or in the alley, or... literally just
about anywhere besides a school.

>>> "She wanted to see what would happen [when the chemicals mixed] and was
shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too."

This quote is silly. "She wanted to see what happened"? I don't think she's
being intellectually honest here. The chances of mixing those chemicals by
happenstance just "to see what would happen"..? Let's not be disingenuous. The
only reason you mix those ingredients is if you know what they are capable of
together. And extrapolating from that, we can re-write this as "she just
wanted to see what the explosion would be like."

And that, is horrible, horrible judgement that deserves to be met with
reprimand from the school system. Without being part of an actual science
project led by an actual teacher, you can't just light off fireworks in school
because the science of it is fun. This is overwhelmingly obvious. That's
behavior that can't be tolerated. I just wish we weren't in this insane system
of zero tolerance where poor judgement by children in their teens--where
ultimately nobody was hurt--can result in their lives being ruined forever.

I've done things like this before, I empathize with all the stories i've read
of people doing similar things. But this fist pumping about "oh it's no big
deal it's in the name of science!" is a little confusing to me. She showed
horrible, horrible judgement and could have actually hurt somebody. I
understand that 2 felonies is ridiculous, but I don't know why many of you are
acting as if we should be actively -encouraging- this behavior unless it's
supervised by someone with authority at the school, and there is an actual
learning experience. Many are jumping to the conclusion that this is the
innocence of a curious mind that loves science and nothing more. I find it
hard to make that jump without seeing more information; there are too few
facts in this article.

So I agree with part of your sentiments, and disagree with others where I feel
you're thinking irrationally because of your own love of science.

~~~
bentcorner
> _And that, is horrible, horrible judgement_

That's what being a child is all about. Some people want to see things for
themselves.

If I told a younger you about 42.zip, wouldn't you be just a teeny-tiny bit
curious about it? Wouldn't you think it would be _so funny_ to email it to a
friend of yours at school because of what it did to your machine? What if your
school had a zero-tolerance policy for "hacking"?

~~~
ruswick
> _That's what being a child is all about._

That may be true, but it does not exonerate her from any wrongdoing. Just
because some kids aren't cognizant of what is appropriate or safe to do in
certain situations doesn't mean that those things aren't objectively bad or
that they shouldn't be discouraged.

She did something that was clearly against school policy and created a
dangerous situation. She might not have had the foresight to realize how dumb
it was, but that doesn't mean that it was ok to do.

(And believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of students aren't inclined
towards harm, and are aware, like everyone else, of the explicit or implicit
bounds on what they can do. I've never understood where the perception of kids
as oblivious troublemakers with no notion of nor respect for basic social
norms and the law.)

------
darkarmani
Too bad she didn't make a dry-ice bomb. I think a lot of states don't
categorize it properly as an explosive device because it is caused by a phase-
change and not a chemical reaction.

Oh and response to the officials that said this:

>Their response: kids should learn that "there are consequences to their
actions."

That is a disingenuous response that could be used for any punishment. Kids
can learn about consequences without needing a draconian punishment. No one
every suggested not punishing her.

~~~
zdw
My high school had a dry ice fogger in the theatre department for making the
close to the ground fog effect for productions.

Basically, it was an 80 gallon drum with a heating element in it, a basket
that could be lowered and tubes for the fog to escape. You heated the water,
then put the dry ice in the basket, _clamped the top down tight_ , then
plunged the dry ice into the water. Makes great fog that is mostly CO2 gas.

Well, if you don't clamp the top down tight enough, it'll go flying off,
throwing hot water everywhere. This happened during one production and did
quite a bit of set damage. Thankfully nobody was scalded badly.

Note, don't use this if you're doing a musical with an orchestra, or the fog
flowing into the orchestra pit can result in woozy, oxygen deprived musicians.

~~~
sk5t
Well, it's not out of the question that the pit orchestra might appreciate
that effect.

What was the necessity of clamping down the top, given that there were open
tubes for the fog (and pressure) to escape?

~~~
zdw
The gas expansion is extremely fast - you're basically turning a few pounds of
dry ice from solid to gas + water vapor in a matter of seconds.

With the pressures involved, if the top isn't on securely, shooting the top
off is the path of least resistance.

------
rommelvr
The amount of times my friends and I made pressure bombs (in a 600ml bottle)
using NaOH and Al (exactly what was described in the article, and frankly, my
first thought when reading this) at school and at home I can't even count on
two hands. It was initially shown to us by our Chemistry teachers as a method
for creating H2. The real danger isn't the expanding/produced hydrogen, it is
the highly basic solution that is still reacting within the bottle. If you're
nearby, and it explodes, depending on your volumes, the resultant spray can be
seriously ... painful. Safety goggles and a nearby water source is a must
have. Been a few times where I've rushed to the shower after my face started
bleeding from corrosive spray after a mis timed attempt at this... If she was
just capturing the hydrogen and igniting it... then it was completely
harmless.

------
dkhenry
I convinced my little brother to do a science experiment where we measured the
explosive power of black powder by seeing how high it would launch a metal
ball out of a tube ( We basically made a vertically fixed homemade cannon ) He
brought our apparatus the balls and black powder to his presentation. Had he
done this today I imagine he would have been arrested for possessing a weapon
of mass destruction.

~~~
darkarmani
NJ has classified bb guns as firearms. If you are a 17 year old kid goofing
around with a bb gun and shoot your friend (who hasn't?), you can be tried as
an adult (felonies) for firearms violations.

[http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-
Gun-...](http://www.mercercountycriminallawyer.com/Trenton-NJ-BB-Gun-
Lawyer.shtml)

~~~
JWLong
To hear my dad tell it, "back in the day" kids just had shoot-outs in the
backyard with Red Ryder BB guns...

~~~
darkarmani
I've been shot with a BB gun a few times (late 80s, early 90s). Now, the way
the law is that would be prison time for the shooter in NJ.

------
Xcelerate
Chemical engineer here. What haven't I done?

\- Shattered stuff with liquid nitrogen: PB&J sandwich, bouncy balls, etc.

\- Melted various metals in crucibles over Fisher burners. Got burned a few
times when I didn't realize the crucible lids were still hot.

\- Made ferrofluid. Not particularly dangerous, but very cool stuff. Search
for it on Youtube.

\- Thermite reactions. These were fun. You had to start them with sparklers
(or a lit magnesium strip).

\- Lit hydrogen bubbles (we used to have "fire Friday")

\- Chlorine and sodium reaction to make salt

\- Nitrogen triiodide (an explosive; can be detonated with one alpha particle)

\- Aluminum sulfur reaction: This one was interesting; the science lab book
specified a small zinc sulfur reaction. I wanted to up the ante with aluminum
and sulfur. Per the Wikipedia page which I read _after_ the experiment:

"This reaction is extremely exothermic and it is not necessary or desirable to
heat the whole mass of the sulfur-aluminium mixture; (except possibly for very
small amounts of reactants). The product will be created in a fused form; it
reaches a temperature greater than 1100 °C and may melt its way through steel.
The cooled product is very hard."

Yeah, my friend and I finely ground up a HUGE batch of that aluminum and
sulfer in a mortar and lit it in the fume hood. It looked like a rocket was
going off. What we also didn't realize was that the product, aluminum sulfide,
should NOT go in water, and water is exactly where I dumped the stuff. It
stunk up the lab with hydrogen sulfide. I wonder how many brain cells I killed
with that.

\- Burned some chromium compound. Can't remember what it was, but when I
showed the instructor the product, he got really upset. He began scooping it
out of the sink because apparently I'd created a carcinogen.

\- Found a container of mercuric (II) nitrate. It was the one thing the
instructor wouldn't let us play with.

That was all in high school. Mostly in the fume hood. College was a lot more
boring (we had to wear goggles and gloves to handle Kool-aid), although I did
accidentally spill a container of concentrated sulfuric acid all over the
place in organic synth lab.

~~~
peddamat
Potassium permanganate + Glycerin was my go-to as an amateur experimentalist
in middle school / high school.

My second favorite was common electrolysis, filling the garage with the smell
of chlorine from impurities in the tap water / whatever container I was using
at the time.

I wonder if kids get to experience the unbridled joy of discovering chemistry
on their own, nowadays.

Of course, I'm sure parents are better off. My poor mother rushed me to the ER
far too many times.

------
ISL
If the government wants leaders in STEM, and, say, rocketry, they have to let
people play.

Heck, even if you're looking for new military ordnance engineers... Nobody
gets good at building things that blow things up without playing with things
that blow up.

Play is important; it's how we learn.

~~~
betterunix
The government does not want free thinkers who explore their curiosity
designing its bombs. What the government wants are people who do what they are
told, who follow procedures, and who do not ask unnecessary questions. The
government wants the kids who only made little explosions when their chemistry
teacher told them to and only using the chemicals they were told to use.

~~~
rosser
In a debate between what the government _wants_ and what the rest of the world
_needs_ , I'm going to go with the latter, pretty much every time.

~~~
betterunix
The post I was replying to suggested that the government should not be
punishing someone who could do great work in relevant chemistry work. My point
was that the government may have a need for rockets and bombs, but that they
will find the chemists with a conservative approach to science and work ethics
rather than free thinkers. I do agree that the world needs more free thinkers,
but the government does have substantial power in determining what sort of
people will do society's intellectual work.

For what it's worth, this is a problem that goes back a long way:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates>

~~~
jlgreco
Socrates should have never even been at that trial; I've got to say that I
have always found Socrates' response to Crito to be immensely dissatisfying.

It seems to me that it assumes the true nature of the law will never take take
one by surprise, and (although it may have been practical at the time) I think
it is a mistake to think that opting out of the law before being a victim of
it is a practical thing to expect of people. His reasoning is basically just a
more principled cry of _"if you don't like it, leave it"_ :

 _"we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that
if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the
city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods
with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any one who
does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any
other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property."_

Immensely dissatisfying. I cannot stand Plato's telling of that entire series
of events.

------
hluska
My Dad was a police officer. Had he chosen to indict me for all the stuff I
destroyed in the name of science, I'd still be in jail.

Luckily, when he was young, he did similarly stupid things (like chopping down
a tree...onto his house). Whenever I'd cause particular mayhem, he'd take me
to the local library to learn where my latest experiment had gone badly. Heck,
thanks to his good attitude and interest in my passions, by the time I was 14,
I could have gotten a job fixing VCRs, computers, televisions, radios, etc.

------
Zikes
I really think the Mythbusters need to weigh in on this. Adam Savage seems to
have a big presence in science education, and I can't think of anyone more
qualified to speak on the matter.

~~~
MartinCron
I was just listening to Adam Savage's "Still Untitled" podcast where he talks
about blowing stuff up as the least favorite part of what he does.

That's not to say he won't come to her defense, but I was surprised to hear
that.

~~~
cypher543
I think Jamie is the explosives guy. After all, two of his more well-known
lines are "Jamie wants big boom!" and "When in doubt, C4!" I always got the
impression that Adam liked building things more than he liked blowing them up.
But I'm sure he enjoys a good fireball nonetheless.

------
senorprogrammer
Adult-induced fear should not be a reason for stifling childhood-inate
curiosity. I remember as a kid we were extremely good at taking apart
fireworks, putting them into other objects, and blowing those things up. Was
that a good idea? Well, we were careful about and we had lots of fun and no
one got hurt, so maybe yes, maybe no. Most importantly: at the end of the day
it was just another way to explore the world and revel in the wonder.

It pains me to see kids beaten down by adults who may never have experienced
that thrill of experimentation and the simple "whoa!" that comes from blowing
something up. Clearly missing out on that has damaged those adults in some
fundamental way.

(*I'll always feel a bit bad about blowing up my friend's sister's Barbie
Dream Camper in this way...)

~~~
solistice
Tell her it was a concept visualisation for Breaking Bad, but that the idea
was stolen.

------
sanj
The part that is being missed here is the implications of a felony arrest:

\- can no longer vote

\- won't be able to get financial aid

\- can't go to a state college

\- can't get a loan

In addition, being expelled means that she will have to move in order to
continue school.

Educators who don't understand the implications of what they are doing are
demonstrating terrible judgment.

You can read more: <http://www.cfjj.org/arrestedfutures.php>

~~~
superuser2
> won't be able to get financial aid

This is huge. To anyone who believes this punishment is appropriate, keep in
mind that it means she _will not go to college_ (unless her family is
wealthy).

------
rdouble
When I was 14, my friends and I used to blow up snowbanks in the backyard with
these all the time. However, we were not doing it in the name of science. We
were doing it because we were pre "Jackass" skater dickheads. I believe we
found the instructions in either Thrasher or Big Brother magazine.

I can't help but think the "science" angle is actually working against this
young girl. This was obviously not a science project, and there are few things
rednecks hate more than being told how to approach their business by people
who think they are smarter than they are. It would be more beneficial to
donate to the girl's defense fund than to pay lip service to some phony "it
was science" defense.

~~~
droithomme
"This was obviously not a science project"

That's not obvious to me at all. It's obvious to me that it was science, a
chemistry experiment in particular. Hard to see how it wasn't.

------
riveteye
Yeah, I'm a member of a hackerspace which is almost entirely made up of PhD's,
engineers, security specialists, artists, creatives, inventors and innovators
and almost all of what we do is related to fire and explosions (and
electronics and art!). So yeah. Total support for this lady. I would
contribute to a defense fund or college fund.

------
coldcode
I emptied out the entire science building by reducing DMSO. You've smelled
nothing until you've smelled DMS.

~~~
davidcuddeback
I caused a small brush fire playing with an Estes rocket. Fire department told
me "try to be more careful."

~~~
jfb
I remember hooking a D motor up to a guide wire (no rocket!) and firing it off
in a lot behind my friend Jason's house. It took the predictably chaotic
trajectory and again predictably shot straight through the closed window at a
house under construction across the otherwise empty lot. I think we stuck
around long enough to make sure that the place didn't catch fire, which, in
retrospect, was probably the dumbest thing of all.

Good times.

~~~
davidcuddeback
That's almost exactly how I started the fire. We launched the rocket several
times, progressively losing more parts of it. First the nose cone. Then the
body. All we had left was one last rocket, so we launched the rocket alone
without a body. It sort of spiralled into the air. It didn't make it very high
---maybe about 100 feet---then fell into the brush. I think the parachute
charge went off after the engine landed in the brush.

------
psutor
I am glad to see that this is getting proper attention, probably enough for
Kiera's life not to be totally ruined by it.

The exact same punishment was given to me for doing the same thing in 2004:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272>

------
hdctambien
Before I ever did a science experiment, I had to write a lab report and detail
(1) what I was going to do, (2) how I was going to do it, and (3) what I
expected the results to be.

If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping
straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or
are you just blowing things up?

What happens when a student does one of these "science experiments" and
actually blows up a classroom (or bathroom or playground) and kills a bunch of
kids?

Does it matter if he did it on purpose? Was he just doing science? Kids being
kids? Was the teacher to blame? Were the parents to blame? If it was your kid
that was maimed/killed in the explosion, would you even care if it was a
"science experiment"?

On the flip side, is it worth worrying about the rare case of a rogue-science-
experiment-gone-wrong?

Is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists"
by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say
it's for science."

Maybe not.

I hope my kids are responsible with science. I hope the people around my kids
are responsible with science.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method>

~~~
sliverstorm
Lab reports and notebooks are not what makes "Science". Science is developing
a hypothesis, performing an experiment, observing the results, and re-
evaluating your hypothesis. That's it. It doesn't matter if you write it down
or turn it in.

Kids do science all the time.

------
quinoa_rex
Considering the amount of nonsense I got up to in 11th grade chemistry lab
including but not limited to lighting various metals on fire to see what
colour they burned and handling hydrochloric acid, a little aluminum foil and
toilet bowl cleaner should have been met with a slap on the wrist and possibly
a talk from someone in the science department about what mixing chemicals
you're not familiar with can do.

It was definitely not a smart choice to do it at school, and she was
definitely aware of the fact that what she was going to do was going to go
bang. Allowing for that, though - kids are curious, and with the advent of the
Internet, if a kid's curiosity is piqued enough by something they saw on
YouTube, I expect they're gonna try it, whether it's a Drano bomb or Mentos in
Diet Coke.

Were I the teacher I'd have provided a controlled demonstration of why not to
do things and some resources for experimenting safely. Expelling the poor girl
just discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again.

~~~
csense
> discourages her from experimenting with anything ever again

Maybe that's exactly the desired result for the sort of people who choose a
bureaucratic career, and maybe it's exactly such people who decide her fate.

------
cafard
We tried making thermite, but got sloppy and used pellets rather than powder.
Our chemistry teacher (whom we did not inform of this) had fooled with stuff
that went bang when he was a kid.

------
pbo
I work at a hardware company - high-current and high-voltage power
electronics. Things occasionnaly blow-up, but there have never been any
serious consequences, because eveyone has _very_ safe working habits, even the
individuals who act like they don't care. Unfortunately this is not always the
case for our clients..

------
rch
While the felony charges are clearly overkill, I think it is counterproductive
to defend a moment of very bad judgment by calling it science.

~~~
jlgreco
Bad judgement and science are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they have quite
a colorful shared history.

The only reason to say that this was not _both_ seems to be a (frankly, rather
suspicious) attitude about the likelihood that this girl had curiosity about
science.

------
gcb0
During a chemistry class where we were doing batteries by inserting metals
into acid to light a small light bulb, i theorized that since the voltage
depended on the area of contact with the metal, then using steel wool would
make mads voltage.

it did not work at first (maybe i had anything that would start a current with
steel, don't really remember the details, or any chemistry from high school)
but eventually i got some current (maybe some of the previous metal rod was
still in the solution?). the light bulb wasn't burning brighter then before,
but the part of the steel wool that was out of the acid sure was.

burning metal in a cup of acid. and no eye protection.

------
SeanDav
I am surprised to see this happening in the USA, I thought that UK had the
title sewn up for "Unbelievably Stupid Jobsworths"

~~~
venomsnake
It is metastazing in the whole world. The whole overprotection thing. Our
parents assumed that we were both smart and reckless. And parented
accordingly. The current generation is brought up as if they are retards. The
child safety is blown out of proportion ... in a friends house every edge was
child proofed ...

~~~
csense
Part of the problem is that people these days have fewer children, closer
together. Before, say, 1970, people learned parenting because there were lots
of both much younger siblings and large families with lots of uncles/cousins
living close by.

Now families are small and geographically spread out, so people don't have
lots of exposure to younger children. This means they don't get as much
practical experience at dealing with kids, which makes them do stupid things,
listen to stupid advice, or fall into groupthink.

------
crest
My old chemistry teacher once welded the school doors together after he
learned about thermite. His punishment was to repair the door and write an
essay about the possible dangers handling thermite plus a few days helping the
janitor clean the school grounds. He reminded us that while we might be
tempted to repeat this he would recommend against destroying school property.
So we locked the the school by attaching tie down straps to the school doors
and leaving through a window in the second story.

------
gtani
In my freshman Chemistry lab, this, uh, underperforming student decided to put
a beaker of some extremely volatile solvent (carbon tet, acetone, toluene?) on
a lit bunsen burner, shooting flames about 12 feet high, damaging the facility
pretty badly, and putting a stop to his medical school aspirations.

That was one of the first events in my life where I realized i needed to
suspend morbid fascination, and develop a fear of getting killed.

~~~
chewxy
During my A levels, I had a friend who somehow managed to set the entire fume
cabinet on fire, and in panic, he accidentally unlodged the tap controlling
the bunsen burner, causing fire to come out of the tap as well.

He's now a lawyer.

------
venomsnake
Ahhh ... lets say I painted the floor with nitrogen triiodide in front of the
teachers toilet when the philosophy teacher was taking a dump there. She
jumped and screamed maybe a minute and on every jump she landed on a nice
patch of substance and small new explosion and scream and so on ... It was fun
being in eight grade.

------
rdl
At MIT we did some fun things:

1) Dropping whole blocks of sodium metal (5-10 pounds) into the Charles River,
off a bridge. This is an annual thing, although I think it may have stopped at
some point.

2) Taking non-dairy coffee creamer (a very fine powder) into a 5-story
fireproof stairwell in a dorm, dropping the powder so it filled the air in the
stairwell, and then demonstrating fuel air explosive

3) Soaking a tennis ball in gasoline, lighting it on fire, and playing soccer
in a relatively fireproof hallway. Hilarity ensued when an RA decided to try
to put out some minor secondary fire using a ... synthetic nylon sleeping bag
as a fire blanket.

Outside college but not in a warzone, I did a lot more interesting stuff.
Tannerite, LPG cylinders, etc.

In Iraq, I got to play with much more fun stuff, sometimes under competent
supervision. I still have never gotten to fire an RPG or set off a claymore,
though.

~~~
ericd
When I was there, the coffeemate explosion was typically done in the EC
courtyard right after the sodium drop. I think there might have been a hiatus
on the sodium drop after someone found some unexploded on the bank near mass
ave in 07 and it caused a fire when they chucked it in with some other wet
debris.Not sure if it actually did stop or come back. Sad if it's gone, that
was always one of my favorite events of the year.

------
byandyphillips
Charges dropped: [https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-
hill-d...](https://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-drop-
charges-against-kiera-
wilmot?utm_campaign=twitter_link_action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition)

~~~
DennisP
That link only says the charges haven't yet been filed, and advocates that
they be dropped.

------
RockyMcNuts
YouTube of a similar experiment - "The Works" cleaner with HCl + aluminum foil

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgDhizxCeIY&feature=youtu.be)

The same DA didn't press charges against a kid who shot his brother dead with
a BB gun. Not saying there should have been charges in that case, just
highlights the absurdity of felony charges for a soda bottle bomb.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-
girls...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57582808-71/expelled-girls-bomb-
toilet-cleaner-and-foil/)

------
oftenwrong
I was suspended for 3 days in high school for burning a small strip of
magnesium in the school. I did it exactly the way we did in my chemistry
class. Personally, I think it was not dangerous. I was in a room without any
wooden furniture, and with a concrete floor.

Earlier that year someone had intentionally (according to investigators)
started a fire in a stairwell that was being used to store chairs and desks,
so the subject of fire in the school was a bit touchy. The incident also led
to the installation of surveillance cameras throughout the school.

------
aray
As a social mechanism, I think this is a great idea. This is vetted members of
the scientific community (as well as just about anyone) speaking their support
and hopefully lending to the thought that punishing this girl is unfair.

This is a pretty awesome use of twitter. Hashtags allow a common chain of
discussion, and the low-barrier-to-contribution encourages anyone and everyone
to weigh in their support.

A lot of the comments here are "I did this similar thing when I was in school
too". If you want to contribute, tweet as well with the hashtag.

------
dan_manges
One of my friends did the same thing in high school, except he put too much in
the bottle. When he out the cap on, it instantly exploded. He had severe burns
on his face, and if he wasn't wearing glasses, he might have ended up blind.

While I don't think Kiera should be charged with a felony, the encouragement
to experiment needs to be tempered with an understanding of risks and proper
safety procedures.

------
lambersley
I wonder though if a 16-year old high school student who descends from the
Middle East, Muslim would get the same public support. Uhm...

~~~
wavefunction
They would from me.

~~~
alan_cx
Me too.

------
alan_cx
Here is my contribution to the curious confessions:

Before I built my own computer, I was obviously in to electronics, preceded by
electrics. My crimes are ones of electrocution. Both me and innocents. Every
one was relieved when I moved from electrical stuff to electronics, then micro
electronics. The all clear came when I got my first proper computer and
focused on that instead.

------
iskander
Me and several of my friends blew up a menagerie of large objects for the
sheer joy of seeing an explosion, and the challenge of making an even bigger
explosion the next time. Now we're all engineers, grad students, teachers,
etc... I guess we're lucky we were in high school before the country went
insane with fear.

------
dhughes
At this rate when a student opens a Coke or Pepsi in school it will be
considered an explosive device.

------
ck2
This story has been haunting me for a week.

So far the only news I've seen cover it on a national basis on TV is Chris
Hayes - anyone else?

<http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51740447>

------
meric
In high school I got suspended for 2 days for creating a "broadcast storm" by
plugging an ethernet wall outlet to itself. The school was without computer
network for days. No felony charges.

------
charlieok
I knew a guy who got a perfect standardized test score, went to a pretty nice,
selective college, and then got in some trouble there for making napalm. Not
like felony trouble, but trouble.

------
naftaliharris
I put a capacitor in backwards once, went away from my circuit, and came back
to smell and see it smoking and flaming.

------
varjag
When 12, I tried electrolysis of hydrochloric acid for hydrogen, but nearly
poisoned me and my friend with chlorine.

------
pvaldes
Santiago Ramón y Cajal... shoot a homemade cannon at the age of eleven.

------
tn13
Safety is important during science experiments but accidents happen.

------
snappy173
reminds me of when i accidentally started a fire in study hall ...

------
sultezdukes
I wish the race card wouldn't be played as much in all of this, and that it's
a conversation about schooling, science, and the risks that we should be
willing to accept in a free country.

~~~
KirinDave
Except that there are numerous cases of white kids doing similar things and
not, you know, having their lives ruined by felony charges.

~~~
betterunix
I am inclined to think that the school would have had the same reaction
regardless of the student's race. It sounds like a classic case of, "How dare
she learn things we did not sanction in our curriculum?! She needs to be
punished!"

~~~
KirinDave
That would be a comforting fiction. However it seems that this prosecutor
might have a pattern of behavior consistent with taking race into account:

[http://raniakhalek.com/2013/05/02/prosecutor-behind-kiera-
wi...](http://raniakhalek.com/2013/05/02/prosecutor-behind-kiera-wilmot-
arrest-filed-no-charges-for-white-teen-who-killed-little-brother/)

While the component you're talking about is real, I'm sure, I suspect that the
part of it where a young girl curious about science has her life ruined is
probably at least as motivated by race as by control issues in the school.

~~~
tzs
That link you gave could equally well be used to support the argument that the
prosecutor is prejudiced AGAINST white people. Set off a minor explosion at a
school where it will put black people at a slight risk, he prosecutes. Kill a
white kid, he does not prosecute.

~~~
KirinDave
Maybe, if America doesn't have a history of white-oppresses-black racism
stretching back to before its founding as a country. Since it does, I do not
thing any rational reader could com to that conclusion.

In either case, it doesn't matter. The point is the prosecutor really seems to
be taking race into account on juvenile cases. Were they favoring black kids
or unduly penalizing them is immaterial.

~~~
tzs
A rational reader could not come to any conclusion from the link you provided,
because the two cases considered there are so different, and even if they were
similar the sample size is way too small.

~~~
KirinDave
It is not small at all in the context of American history. It was really not
so long ago that we were requiring black people to use separate water
fountains from white people and blocking them from whole classes of
employment. Many places in that region of the US still cling–perhaps
unwittingly, I suppose–to extremely racist traditions like segregated public
and private events. The statistics on black incarceration and economic status
are _well_ established.

So when someone raises the specter of racism in a powerful public office like
this, the accusation _warrants investigation_ if nothing else. And other
people here have asked for hundreds of samples, but this prosecutor's data set
(which is really the thing in question here) is really not that large.

What's more, it loses sight of the real problem! The real problem is a curious
girl is being overly punished for experimenting. The laws that put her in this
jeopardy should also be under attack in addition to investigating the racist
factors that come to light.

------
rplnt
What a horrible title. Had to read it few times before I decided I don't
understand it. Why are some word capitalized and some not blows my mind. I
won't even bother reading the article.

