I did not like this Far Side cartoon for obvious reasons.
This could do real harm, burning the victim’s neck, and if I caught anyone doing this they would be immediately expelled from the lab. Not funny.
Additionally, I have a personal memory of my first year in general chemistry. I had a lab partner who was a total klutz — I carried her through that lab, in spite of her inability to titrate anything. She was a danger with a pipette, and every week I’d go back to the dorm to discover that somehow the back of my pants and shirt had been spattered with acids — when I’d do my laundry I’d discover all these holes in my clothes, which was also not funny.
I’ve wondered for years if my lab partner really disliked me, or if she was trying to get my attention because she liked me, or she was just ridiculously incompetent in the lab. It happened so often that I suspect the first possibility.
There is the possibility that Gary Larson – not being a chemist – was confusing hydrochloric acid with some milder acid. We have all been there – I used to beleive lagomorphs were a subset of rodentia. And I did not know marsupials were mammals.
It depends on the strength. When pipetting by mouth was still normal I got a mouthful of 0.1M HCl when someone tapped me on the shoulder unexpectedly.
I should have added that I immediately washed out my mouth with water and had a rough feel to my teeth for a couple of days.
I should have added that I immediately washed out my mouth with water and had a rough feel to my teeth for a couple of days.
Sorry, I did it again!
I used to get silver nitrate stains on my hands. I recall my chemistry teacher in university mentioning that any clothing he wore to lecture on demo days would get small holes in it, even with his lab coat and safety protocols.
I was the klutz, but I only had one chemistry class in university. Going slow and focusing helped, and I was never so comfortable that I stopped doing that. In physics labs, I’d just make friends with the engineers so we could partner up: they appreciated someone who really knew her theory and the math, and I got someone with steady hands who liked running the equipment. (Apparently my final project for my circuits lab had the teacher still talking about it the year after — it was a cool project but I was NOT the one working the soldering iron for building the apparatus.)
I’ve seen worse. A lot worse.
Not immediately in person, but I knew people who were there.
Among them, two females attacked by radioactive isotopes.
They found out about it by walking past a Geiger counter and setting it off.
One was radioactive iodine, the other was a large dose of P32.
Then there was the attempted murder by acrylamide poisoning.
Acrylamide is a common laboratory chemical, used to make acrylamide gels for electrophoresis.
I’ll redact his name.
He had his problems but this poisoning by acrylamide was taking things way too far.
Isn’t the punch founded exactly on the extremity of the “prank?”