A Laboratory Story

This is why Edward Teller decided to build Lawrence Livermore laboratory *far* away from Berkeley or anyplace else where people might someday live:

Uncertain Principles : How to Tell a True Lab Story: This is true. A guy I knew in graduate school, he had a buddy who was working late in the lab one night. He was all alone, and he got a little bored, so he took a two-liter soda bottle, and he filled it halfway up with liquid nitrogen. Then he screwed the cap on tight. Now, liquid nitrogen, when it boils, it takes up something like 700 times the volume of the liquid. So this guy, he's got this bottle, and he's kicking it around in the hall. But the bottle starts to swell up, so he tries to open the cap, and it's stuck. So he runs into the bathroom, and he dumps it in a sink, and runs back out in the hall.

A few minutes later, there's an earth-shattering KABOOM!, and he goes back into the bathroom. The bottle blew up, and reduced the sink to rubble. At this point, the guy telling me the story pulls out a Polaroid of the busted-up sink. There are little chunks of porcelain, twisted copper pipes, little daggers of two-liter bottle plastic sticking into the walls and ceiling. The bathroom in the picture is trashed.

The explosion, it wakes up all sorts of people, and sets off an alarm. Pretty soon the campus police are there, asking questions about what happened. They get the story from the kid with the bottle, then they call his thesis advisor. It's two o'clock in the morning, and his advisor is home in bed. The police tell his advisor that one of the students just blew up the lab with nitroglycerin.

Well, his advisor comes screaming in at two o'clock in the morning. He gets to campus, and the lab is fine. One of his students blew up the bathroom with liquid nitrogen.

"Oh," he says. "That's part of the experiment." And he goes home and goes back to bed.

A true lab story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper scientific practice, nor restrain graduate students from doing the things that graduate students have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a lab story, you feel uplifted, or if you feel that you have learned some useful fact about science, you have been made the victim of an old and terrible lie. As an order-of-magnitude approximation, you can tell a true lab story by its absolute and utter lack of any real scientific content whatsoever. Listen to the post-doc. "Earth-shattering KABOOM!" he says. Then he laughs. He's twenty-eight years old-- it's too much for him-- so he looks at you and says "Earth-shattering KABOOM!", because it's so incredibly funny and true: the advisor went home and went back to bed.

You can tell a true lab story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a tstory, and afterwards you ask "Can you really destroy a bathroom with liquid nitrogen in a soda bottle?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer.

For example, you may have heard this one. Three physicists are sitting around the break room, and they take a light bulb, and put it in the microwave. Now, if you put a light bulb into a microwave oven, and turn it on, the microwaves build up a large electric field at the point ends of the metal bits inside the bulb, and the resulting plasma discharge makes the bulb light up.

Is it true?

The answer matters.

You'd feel cheated if it didn't work that way. Without the grounding reality, it's not an interesting physics trick, it's just Hollywood nonsense. Yet even if it did happen-- and you could stick a light bulb in your own microwave to find out-- even then, you know it can't be true, because a lab story that lame wouldn't be worth telling. A thing may depend on actual physical principles, and be totally dull; another thing may leave out the physics explanation, and be truer than the truth. For example: three physicists are sitting around the break room, and a post-doc comes in with a bulb from an overhead projector. "How do you tell if one of these is burnt out?" she asks. One of the guys in the break room grabs it from her, and throws it in the microwave, where it lights up. He hands it back, and says "It's fine." The other two fall out of their chairs laughing.

That's a true lab story. It may even have happened.

(With apologies to Tim O'Brien, and in honor of Seed soliciting lab lit for their fiction supplement issue....)

Now of course, Livermore has a population of 74,000, all at the mercy of the nuclear physicists at the Lab.

And I'm heading for the microwave with a lightbulb.

Comments

[Colin Danby]

So what happened?

I've got a microwave across the hall from my office here, but last time somebody (wasn't me!) made a mistake with the microwave there were fire trucks.

[Miguel]

Nice. In top of the apologies to Tim O'Brien, the original quote remains as plain truth as always: “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, not suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectittude has been salvaged from the larger waste, they you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.” Tim O’Brien. The Things They Carried

[kebernet]

Free Theordore Hollot!

[save_the_rustbelt]

Water (or your morning cup of tea) put in the microwave on the wrong (too long) setting will superheated and make quite a mess.

I have an old microwave and am tempted to try it on my back patio, but since I am past the age where I am supposed to use my head I have refrained.

Maybe next summer.

[Mean Gene]

My father, who was a chemistry major at Carnegie Tech (never to be called Carnegie-Mellon in his presence) told this story:

He's in the lab working on something and a group of bored grad students decide to see if they can make nitroglycerin. Just for the hell of it. Many hours pass, my dad leaves to get something to eat, comes back, and finds the grad students surrounding a slate table covered with a jury-rigged apparatus and a beaker coated with a thin film.

The good news is that they had successfully produced nitroglycerin. The bad news is that they didn't know what to do with it. They couldn't move it--it's so unstable it could go off just from jiggling the beaker and maim whoever touched it. They can't leave it there--some innocent soul will wander by and end up getting a very nasty (and possibly fatal) surprise. Goodness knows they can't call someone in authority and admit their involvement.

Some of the guys go outside and grab loose stone from the parking lot. They turn a few of the heavy slate tables on their side to form a bunker and they take turns lobbing stones at the beaker. Tap...tap...tap...

And then, to quote Marvin the Martian, a kaboom, an earth-shattering kaboom. The explosion cleaved the slate table in two and sent glass shards everywhere. And then, in the spirit of boys all over the world who break something in the course of their play, they all ran like hell.

[Tad Brennan]

Nahhhh....Not a chance.

One 100th of 1% of the liquid nitrogen boils, the two-liter bottle builds up to 80psi, maybe 100psi, at which point it bursts with no appreciable damage to the surroundings. Then the remaining 99.99% of the stuff boils off with no explosive force whatsoever.

There's a reason people build pipe-bombs in pipes, folks--you've got to get your expansive gases to *build up pressure* for a bit before they dissipate it into the general atmosphere. And a two-liter soda bottle just ain't going to be able to generate enough initial containment to produce a "kaboom" when it lets loose.

It ain't true. And it never happened. Not that it isn't a good story for other reasons, maybe.

[Theophrastus Bombastus von Hoehenheim den Sidste]

It seems to me that the point is a different Old Saw: hypotheses must be interesting, but The Truth is under no such constraint.

[Barry]

Tad, I figured that the liquid nitrogen would have made the plastic incredibly brittle. The first kick would have shattered it like paper-thin glass.

[piotr]

So perhaps the point of war stories (or lab stories) is tell those listeners who understand (and know it could not happen) and those who do not (and listen with open jaws).

Nitroglicerin story does not sound any better than the liquid nitrogen story.

As it is, many professors have offices directly above laboratories -- be it chemical, physical, material science, without any sleepless nights on that account.

OTOH, the scariest lab story I heard was from the former Soviet Union. A friend of mine had a summer job in a physics institute in Leningrad. Story number one: the boss of the institute walks around the building, looking rather worried. The girl asks why. Ah, a metal bar is missing, silverish in color. So she helps him, and somewhere in a corridor they find a bar, not too big but heavy like hell, 40 lb of platinum.

Another story was with liquid nitrogen. Nobody knew why, but the valve of a bottle with liquid nitrogen got loose and the bottle went through three floors like a rocket. Surprisingly, nobody got killed.

[A. Zarkov]

What exactly do you think they do at the Livermore Lab? All the weapons testing was done at the Nevada Test Site, and the HE experiments were done at Site 300. There is not much there to blow up, especially these days. There is more danger from the bio work going on, and even the danger from that is trivial. The workers face more risk from driving to lab then being on site. Ever drive out I-580 in that direction? It can be a harrowing experience especially went you hit a chair, or a ladder that’s fallen off some truck onto the road.

[Big Al]

I made trinitrophenol, in the school lab, and then didn't know what to do with it. I knew that home made stuff had impurities which makes it sensitive. Finally I flushed it down the sink over half an hour, and hoped for the best!

[J Thomas]

Mmmm. PETE bottle of liquid nitrogen in a ceramic sink. Some parts of the sink get real *cold*, others do not. Maybe the sink starts to crack. Then the bottle pops open. Warm bottles are supposed to hold 150 PSI. Probably less for a cold one.

http://www.h2orocket.com/topic/safe/safe.html

An overpressured 2-liter PETE bottle makes a loud noise when it bursts that sometimes gets mistaken for a gunshot.

So say the porcelain sink already has stress fractures from the sharp variation in temperature. Even a small explosion might get it to crack into pieces. The falling pieces then crumple the copper pipes under the sink. That's enough to provide a photograph that fits the description.

If the walls are sheet-rock it doesn't take much to force splinters of plastic into them, provided the splinters have sharp edges.

http://www.h2orocket.com/topic/explode/explode.html

Loud noise, check.
Broken sink, check.
Splinters in walls, check.

What I don't understand is the bottle visibly expanding, and a considerable time before it exploded. I would have expected those bottles to be pretty resistant to expansion. But at least under some circumstances PETE has an elongation at the yield point of about 4%. So a sharp-eyed grad student might notice in time to get out of the way.

http://www.plasticsnews.net/downloads/therformpet.pdf

I guess it's possible. It may have been much less an earthshattering explosion than it seems from the description, and still get all the results claimed. Myself, I'd be real careful about how to pick up a soda bottle half full of liquid nitrogen, that's been shaken. The parts that don't have liquid nitrogen touching them right now might still be very cold.

[elliottg]

The stories about this incident told to me by some people at Bell Labs that I have no reason to think were lying are some of the best true lab stories I have ever heard.

[elliottg]

Forgot the link:

http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm

[Matt Austern]

But the part about the light bulb in the microwave is true: a light bulb in the microwave really does glow. (I don't know whether a burned-out bulb glows, so I don't know whether that's a useful way to check if a bulb is still good.)

Other interesting things to put in a microwave include:
- Grapes
- Ivory soap
- CDs that you don't ever want to listen to again
- Peeps.

[J Bean]

Man, I went to graduate school at the wrong time and in the wrong field. It was pretty hard to get yourself into any kind of cool trouble with an IBM 360/370. Or at least it was until our guy Al invented the internets.

[bza]

'There's a reason people build pipe-bombs in pipes, folks--you've got to get your expansive gases to *build up pressure* for a bit before they dissipate it into the general atmosphere. And a two-liter soda bottle just ain't going to be able to generate enough initial containment to produce a "kaboom" when it lets loose.'

Sorry, but you're making stuff up. When I was a kid I made "bombs" by putting dry ice and hot water in a two-liter soda bottle, and they produced both plastic shrapnel and concussive force.

[MobiusKlein]

Ah, the things I got in trouble for doing in college are almost made up for by the things I wasn't caught doing. I don't know why they did't put the liquid nitrogen tanks under lock & key.

[wcw]

I gave up on lab work early (one year of honors chem at Cal was enough, thanks), but there was one 'true' story.

Some kid heard about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_triiodide and made a little, and thought it was fun. So, he made a lot, then left it in his lab drawer in solution. Then came Thanksgiving. Somehow solution drained off, compound dried, and..

You know, boom. Lots of glassware broken, kid in trouble. No moral, no instruction, but shit happens.

[Bruce Webb]

At a somewhat lower level when I was in the service we had something known as a "Navy story" or more commonly a "no-shitter". Because each and every one started out: "This is a true story, no shit, ....."

And few of them had any moral or practical point either.

[wkwillis]

How thick was the shell of ice that built up around the bottle half full of liquid nitrogen in the sink? Details get left out when a story evolves.

[Richard J]

My tutor at college once came into our tutorial on a glorious sunny spring day with a thick scarf wrapped round his neck which he did not take off for the entire tutorial. I asked why at the end.

Here was his logical chain of thought (and this was perhaps the smartest man I have ever known):-

a) I have a sore throat.
b) Sore throats are caused by bacteria in the lymph gland.
c) The lymph glands are just below the surface of the skin.
d) Bacteria can be killed by UV light.

So, and this is the conclusion only a theoretical physicist could come too, he went down to the basement of the Clarendon lab, borrowed a high-intensity UV light source and shone it on his throat for a few seconds...

My other tutor, a man who specialised in safe respectable solid-state physics, simply said that the man was insane.

[Tim]

LN2 in a garbage can with a close fitting lid was always a favorite. The most altitude would win.

[Stuart]

I surprised the plastic bottle didn't fracture with all that rough handling. I remember working with LN2 in AP Chem in HS (drove a nail with a frozen banana, turned a nerf ball to powder...and took a swing at super-conductivity). I'd figure that plastic bottle a goner at the slightest impact once it got down to tempurature.

Still...the whole story reminds me of my "borrowing" a hunk of sodium (also from AP Chem in HS) and taking it to the Science wing bathroom to see it at work in one of the toilets. When it started reacting rather violently, panicked, flushed and ran. The rather loud "BOOM" that followed was my downfall. Fortunately our teacher was a level-headed sort...him: "Did you do it?" me: "Um...uh...yes" him: "Don't do it again" me: "OK"

[John]

Other interesting things to put in a microwave include:
snip
- CDs that you don't ever want to listen to again

Oh, thank you. I've been looking for a good way to destroy my data CDs, and didn't want to spring for a CD shredder.

As for things that go boom at Lawrence. The Radiation lab in the hills right behind the Berkeley campus have, or used to have, tanks of liquid oxygen. There was a big spherical empty tank outside to contain the explosion in case the liquid oxygen let go.

[Tim]

"The Radiation lab in the hills right behind the Berkeley campus have, or used to have, tanks of liquid oxygen. There was a big spherical empty tank outside to contain the explosion in case the liquid oxygen let go."

If they did they were idiots. You'd vent an O2 release to the atmosphere, a big empty steel tank would just be a large shrapnel bomb.

[Faisal N. Jawdat]

Speaking of Carnegie Mellon (post-merger of the Carnegie Technical Institute with the Mellon College of Science) and exploding things with liquid nitrogen:

When I was there in the early 90's the chemistry department had a large dewar of liquid nitrogen out in the hall. The word was that the cost of someone having to control access was more than the cost of the amount they lost from "miscellaneous" use.

One allegedly common form of undergraduate entertainment was to fill a soda bottle a quarter of the way with cold water, pour in a small amount of liquid nitrogen (I may have the ratio reversed -- I never did this myself nor did I ever witness it being done), seal, and stand back. People who claimed to have done this said that it didn't produce a significant explosion (certainly not sink-destroying), but wold produce a satisfying bang.

This diversion was apparently brought to an end when someone set off one of these bottles in front of the campus police offices, and then did it again a couple days later for good measure. The dewar was moved behind closed doors.

[dilbert dogbert]

No LN2? Try dry ice and soda bottle. Very satisfing boom. The only recoverable pieces are the neck and cap. Only a small amount of dry ice is necessary.

Cautionary tails:
Don't put a small plastic tube in a bottle of LN2 - LN2 squirts out!! This caution is from personal experience.

Don't use pvc pipe for shop air lines no matter how easy, low cost and simple it is to do. PVC is notch sensitive and when it lets go there are major thrown fragments. Use sweated copper or iron pipe for shop air.

Enjoy your science experiments!

[donmaj]

The hydrostatic testing of large diameter (30+inch) natural gas pipelines is an art in proper filling from the high point in the line and ensuring that "air pockets" are virtually eliminated within the "over the terrain" construction -- which can stretch for long distances. The lines are tested to several times the design working pressure for safety. After filling the pipeline to static capacity, a pump is attached to increase to the test pressure. As the pressure within the pipeline increases the diameter of the yielding pipe increases requiring added water. The pipe BALOONS like a stuffed kielbasa. Adding more "incompressible water" further increases the pressure within the pipe...particularly at the base of the hills or mountains.

When failure occurs (due to corrosion or weld break) many folk presume that the pressure would drop virtually instantaneosly. Product losses would be containable and response to isolate loses would be quick. In fact the drop in pressure releases huge volumes of gas (or liquid products) violently tearing open and enlarging the fracture -- which gains further propulsion from the loss of diameter in the pipeline due to elastic restitution of the pipe.

Several decades ago this was a serious hazard particularly in unburied pipelines throughout the USA. Fortunately the Alaska Pipeline is well maintained and monitored -- so far!

Apologies for this dull exposition relative to liquid nitrogen/gas experiences, but I enjoyed other posts about serious and unanticipated accidents and the cavalier attitudes of youthful experimenters.

[dilbert dogbert]

donmaj
Your pipeline story reminded me of my research in hydrotest hazards. I read about how pipeline ruptures can extend for miles. I was never sure how the crack propigated but now I can see the energy source.

Re Supid Things Engineers Do: We, the imperial NASA we, aerostatically (air not water) tested an old pressurized windtunnel(660,000 cu ft) to recertify it for further safe operation. The center was evacuated and the pressurization was controlled from a remote location and all went well so the tunnel was opperated for another 10 years or so. Rehab money became available so the tunnel was inspected for cracks and flaws using x-rays, dye, and ultrasound. With 11 miles of welds total inspection was very expensive so we did a random sample. Lucky for us the sample contained the critical flaw, 114 inches of a crack approximately 3/4 of the way thru the 2-1/2" metal thickness. Fracture mechanics predicted a critical flaw size of 12" long by about 1/2" deep.
We rebuilt the tunnel with new steel, better welding procedures and inspection of every foot of the 11 miles of welding. Then of course, we shut the tunnel down and turned off the lights and went home.

The message: Don't hydrotest - Inspect. Also don't go to work for NASA.

[Ben V-L]

There is no question that a liquid nitrogen soda bottle will make a "kaboom" and could destroy a sink. I base this on two observations:

One, in my undergraduate days we set off a liquid nitrogen soda bottle underneath an upside down metal wastebasket (standard classroom size). Outdoors. And we were quite a ways back. We thought it would throw the waste can some 10-20 feet in the air. It did, but also blew out the bottom of the can, which we found, well, quite some distance away, as far away as we were. It had a sharp metal edge. I felt very stupid and lucky.

Second reason: last year I dropped a coffee mug from a height of less than 2 ft above my $300 Kohler sink. It resulted in multiple large cracks (and totalled the mug).

[John]

Oops. I said liquid oxygen at the Berkeley Rad Lab. Mental slip, I meant liquid hydrogen.