
Sodium's explosive secrets revealed - kachnuv_ocasek
http://www.nature.com/news/sodium-s-explosive-secrets-revealed-1.16771
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acadien
So much good science going on here. Original experimental setup to turn a
stochastic process into a repeatable one. Proper application of computational
methods to study experimental results. Albeit I think I can see some problems
with the AIMD work, it doesn't diminish the overall result. Really a fantastic
piece of work.

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ananduri
I'm a theoretical chemistry phd student. I'm curious, how do you think the
simulations could have been improved?

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patzerhacker
Phil Mason has a video about this research[1] on his YouTube channel. There
are several others on there about intermediate results.

[1] [http://youtu.be/LmlAYnFF_s8](http://youtu.be/LmlAYnFF_s8)

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TheCraiggers
> _He wrote of how, as a boy, he and his friends bought a lump of sodium from
> the local chemicals supplier..._

Whenever I read stuff like I this, it saddens me just how much safety and
common sense have eroded the spirit of scientific experimentation. These days,
the most reactive chemical in a chemistry set is sodium bicarbonate.

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erroneousfunk
You can still purchase sodium from chemical suppliers, schools just aren't
quite as relaxed about letting kids play with it. Even college students can
get in trouble:
[http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N37/sodiumdrop.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N37/sodiumdrop.html)
I doubt throwing a chunk of sodium into the Charles really helped further
"scientific experimentation" all that much... It did get a lot of beach
cleanup volunteers injured, and caused significant property damage, though.

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TheCraiggers
Perhaps "scientific experimentation" was a bit much. But still, I can easily
imagine that incident kindling the yearning for knowledge in a young man,
perhaps setting him on the path of being a scientist. At the very least, I
think it's a somewhat safe bet it influenced his study of sodium later in
life, and we did gain some knowledge from his studies.

I am of course not saying every kid that plays with sodium will become
interested in science, just that perhaps this one wouldn't have, otherwise.

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erroneousfunk
Did you read the article? "That incident" was a frathouse at MIT dumping
sodium into the river... If a kid gets into MIT, gets into a fraternity, and
doesn't have some sort of scientific yearning kindled in him, I really don't
think sodium in the Charles is going to do it.

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Osmium
Nothing bad to say about the science, but the (casual? blasé?) wording of this
really bothered me:

> Jungwirth’s colleague Philip Mason was determined to find out what was
> really going on — despite the hazards. In one run, he removed his face
> shield to blow out a small fire, only to have a piece of metal go off in his
> face, scratching his cheek.

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robin_reala
You almost certainly don’t want to read ‘Things I Won’t Work With’ then:
[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/)

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masklinn
TIWWW often mocks the blasé wording of this kind of reports or articles, the
things you really don't want to read are the source texts.

I very, very strongly recommend reading Ignition!, it is truly awesome (it's
the source for "Sand won't save you this time" and the book would be well
worth its weight in rare metals if it were still possible to find the thing in
any other form than a PDF)

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bitslayer
So that's why too much sodium intake is bad for you. ;)

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settsu
Incidentally, the news from Prague 70 years ago:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Bombing_of_Prague](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Bombing_of_Prague)

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settsu
No, I suppose you're right. That's not at all fascinating to consider...

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settsu
We should just remain comfortably cocooned in our contextual containers.

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scott_s
You're being downvoted because your comment has no relationship to the
submission or the discussion.

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settsu
Incorrect, but, ultimately, I don't give a fuck.

