What is Digg?70 Comments
- hotsoda, on 10/12/2007, -3/+39@ cyroxos:
Francium is number 87 on the periodic table of elements. - mugdecoffee, on 10/12/2007, -6/+35It is in fact fake.
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/AlkaliBangs/index.html - CanceledCzech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31@ cyroxos:
You're joking, right? - Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Yes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,1821144,00.html
- SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -7/+28@cyroxos
"they dont have francium because IT DOESNT EXIST..."
Leave it to the French element to let itself be eradicated. - JTorquido, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23@ cyroxos:
Not so much that it doesn't exist, but since it's so highly reactive, our (the earths) atmosphere will not allow it to exist, because of the presence of H20 (both liquid, and in atmosphere). - Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24This is very old and has been proven to be staged.
The idea behind them is correct but you would need much larger quantities of these elements to make them explode. The producers just put explosives in the things to make a good show (because they weren't able to get good explosions to happen as intended). Lame. - Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13But what really happened? Deep Throat (OK, Brainiac's Dr Bunhead, aka Tom Pringle) claims: "Absolutely bloody nothing. The density of caesium ensured it hit the bottom of the bath like a lead weight. The sheer volume of water then drowned out the thermal shock-wave I was expecting to shatter the bath. They could not go home empty handed. So they rigged a bomb in the bottom of the bath and then blew the ***** out of it. I must say it did look cool ... [It] ate away at my conscience. But I couldn't do anything about it."
- Invid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Very cool.
How's Richard doing these days anyway?
*fingers crossed for speedy recovery* - gcnaddict, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10There are at most only 20-30 g of francium 223in the earth's crust at any one time. The element is not only incredibly reactive, it's also incredibly radioactive. While this isotope of francium has a half life of 22 minutes, its too rare for it to actually do anything meaningful.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12yes that was real cesium.... not Richard says "they wouldnt let us have francium"..... yeah because you'd be freaking dead.
I have seen an actual cesium/rubidium demo before but those guys used a whole hell of a lot... - c0mpL3x, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10the reason they probably couldn't use the element francium is because it is very rare to find on earth. it is also extremely reactive.
- Munkey106, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12You got any proof on this?
- dwemer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Actually they came along before mythbusters, if anything mythbusters copied from brainiac. Brainiac had tackled a few myths that later turned up on mythbusters i.e. does a quack echo.
- Artifez, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15This is that lame mythbusters clone, they annoy me badly.
- toastydeath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Francium is constantly generated on earth, as it's part of the natural uranium decay chain. The atoms just don't spend a whole lot of time as francium before moving further down the chain.
The gram estimate is based on geological surveys for global quantity of uranium ore, how frequent decay into francium is, and francium's half life. - SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Mr. Tickle, bring on the rubidium."
That line'll keep me awake at night... - erimepie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In order to get that big of a reaction you would have needed a really finely powdered form of Cesium and a ton of it, otherwise it just kinda flames up like Potassium did.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4this is a show here in the uk called brainiac i havnt missed one ep of it lol this ep is so old. old thing are getting more populur on digg now
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Check on thermal expansion buddy. When things are heated, most of them expand.... ;)
- theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I work in a chemical plant lab. We do a bunch of Grignard reactions. They are cool as hell.
We have one chemical called Triethyl Silane, or TES for short. In the lab, we call it Terribly Explosive Substance. When the plant operators bring us the sample, they actually bring it in a bomb. Like all good Grignards, it HATES water and all other acids with a passion. So of course what do we do to it as soon as we get it in the lab? That's right, hit it with some 0.5N HCl. Ultra-violence ensues! Fun, fun fun! I love Chemistry.
Chemistry is the most wonderful thing in the world. It certainly is the backbone of the two most important things on Earth: Explosives and Drugs. What else does a human need? - breakbeat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Guess I'll have to stick to dry ice bombs. =(
- skankyBacon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4THANKS FOR FILLING US IN!
- Steel_Blue, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Yea guys, Francium has a half-life of 22 minutes, and it would be nearly impossible to gather a bunch of francium together with that.
- Chealion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It'd be cooler if they hadn't just used bombs to make cesium and rubidium "react". In reality, the two react too fast and just hop off the water - meaning you don't have any cool explosions.
Marked as inaccurate because of the hoax. - jaxshores, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2His name's John Tickle, I love this show. xD
- davidsmero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sweet, I am going fishing now.
- cyroxos, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Yea. although there is no proof of this, I believe it. On one episode they put a vial of nitroglycerin in a dryer. The explosion was fiery and when analyzed contained multiple explosions, thus, i know of at least one episode that faked an explosion...
Look at it for yourself. - Mugsleymug, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4we used to have this show in australia it was utter CRAP. i cant remember waht it was called but it had a segment called "Will it float" where they put fruit in a pool, just ***** like that. It just had non stop almost naked women.
edit: Oh right, it's called Brainiac - diktator279, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Someone already said that, you duped a dupe. DUPE DUPER!
- dbloodnok, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Cant say whether it's fake or not, but I have done the sodium thing with a block about 2cm x 2cm x 4cm and it was very impressive. So I can only assume that the explosions of the more reactive metals is authentic.
- dicerandom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My chem teacher in high school did this with potassium and the chunk broke when it hit the water. One of the flying pieces landed on his hand and he ended up with a small chemical burn. Served him right, the guy was a loon. This same teacher blackened a good chunk of the ceiling with a hydrogen demonstration, he was a pyro.
- madchemst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Make a video and post it. Then I can nominate you for a Darwin award as well :P
- Scoobysnax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here is the article from the Mirror about Richard's return to the road.
http://tinyurl.com/tr56d - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He's doing pretty well and I haven't heard of any special permanent injuries from the accident. He was actually recently back in driving again, but taking it extra slow of course, ~50 mph.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This was proved fake. you can see the wires coming from the tub. They used dynamite for effect.
- MadMan459, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4yeah, it has been on at least once before... I posted it. It was the only one of 3 stories I submitted that actually got diggs!
- BHRecon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2they've been posting updates on the topgear website now and then..
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dugg because of Hamster!
- jumba911, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Isn't this show on G4...? no wonder it sucks!
- Surkit, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4OLD!
- rockforever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this hit the front a couple of months ago i had been looking for it for a while thanks subby
- Moopy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Yeah it's been here at least once before.
- theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No cameras allowed in the building. But we actually do have to quench it with acid before we can shoot it on the GC. It is part of the reaction. Just nobody does it quite the same way I do. They wimp out and use like 50-100 mL and add the acid dropwise, whereas I use the entire liter and squirt the HCl in there with a squeeze bottle for the full effect.
I try not to let my supervisors see me, and they know that I wouldn't do anything that I didn't have complete control over, so the couple times they have seen me do it, they just said "I didn't see that" and walk away. The Ph.D. in charge of the process thought it was damn hilarious the way I quench it out. I think that's another reason my supervisors don't bother me too much. I am in real tight with all the Ph.D.'s. :-) - IWriteCode, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Dupe, no digg:
http://digg.com/general_sciences/Watch_rubidium_and_cesium_react_with_water - WillyWonka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There was a story that my Chemistry teachers used to tell in high school so it may not be true, but they said they were the ones who found it...
My high school was in a 100 year old building and 2 years before I started going there, they built a new one and moved everything over. In the process of cleaning out the chemistry lab's closet and they found a sealed container labeled CS (Cesium... the second one they used in the video). They had to evacuate the school and they called the bomb squad.
It was probably just a prank years in the making but who knows. - bickdigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+1 for "most". the thermo-retractile plastics obviously don't expand :)
- rodgerdodger5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is a nice video on this website of a rather large hunk of sodium reacting violently with water. Click on 'sodium party' link. Lots of other great stuff on that website under the other elements. His stories and articles for other elements are also fantastic.
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/011/index.html - cyroxos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There are probably only a few grams of francium on the planet. My comment is still valid when it comes to purchasing the element. It' s like trying to purchase number 118, its not going to happen. sheesh.
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