Thread: The Golden Book and the Radioactive Boy Scout

I've just come across a download that might interest some of you experimenters out there. The Golden Book of Chemistry experiments was published in the 1960's and was quickly pulled from the shelves as it contains experiments of a less than... safe nature.



The site that I found where you can download it is one where you have to register, I'm afraid. But if any of you are serious about science then you should join this site anyway. It is chock full of science texts and magazines.

http://www.demonoid.com/torrents/details/100943/
(You'll need a bit torrent client, of course. I recommend Azureus.

This book was made famous in the Case of the Radioactive Boy Scout. Which you might find interesting.

Heh heh.
I've been reading through this 'Golden Book' and just came to the part where they tell you how to make chlorine gas.

Read:

"Put .5 g (1/8 teaspoon) Manganese Dioxide into test tube. Add 3 ml (1/8 test tube) undiluted Hydrochloric Acid. Heat gently. Chlorine forms. Waft a little carefully toward you for a sniff."

Ha!
That's some real safe advice for experimenters. Bear in mind, this is a children's book.

Ahh. Gotta love the exuberance and optimism of the 50's and early 60's.

whoo that's cool!! will download shortly.

but eh, where do you buy manganese dioxide?

It's in the book! (Heh. You probably don't get that reference... But it is in the book.)

Well. I just made it all the way through the book. No recipes for refinement of Americium into a nuclear reactor or anything (see the Radioactive Boy Scout above) but it is rather interesting. Definitely a good book for basic introductory chemistry. I have the feeling that the reason it was banned was simply because of the instructions on making chlorine gas. But there might have been other recipes in there of a similarly dangerous nature that I didn't recognize. I do know that with information from this book plus just a little extra elsewhere I am fully capable of making gunpowder. I suspect several other dangerous things could be made from precursors explained in this book.

Another interesting formula in here is for chloroform. I imagine many a child made some of that to knock out his friends and neighbors for fun and profit... Heh.

And it even shows you how to make soap.

All in all, a very informative book. I wish I had had this book back in the days of my old chemistry set. I think that I might have actually remained interested in the subject instead of quickly getting bored of 'turning water into wine' with phenolthalene (always the first chemical used up in the chemistry set, wouldn't you say?) and making stink bombs.

It is a children's book. But an interesting one.


Speaking of soap, while it was explaining soap, it made me wonder what the state of knowledge of molecular biology was. If they knew that the membrane of the cell was a phospholipid bilayer and that proteins are also formed from processes which take advantage of hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of the various amino acids. I suspect that little was known of proteins but what of the membrane?

Anyway. Definitely an interesting read. And if you have children I'd definitely recommend printing them out a copy (with the admonition to EXTREMELY careful with certain experiments (especially those involving chlorine gas)).

Speaking of soap, while it was explaining soap, it made me wonder what the state of knowledge of molecular biology was. If they knew that the membrane of the cell was a phospholipid bilayer and that proteins are also formed from processes which take advantage of hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of the various amino acids. I suspect that little was known of proteins but what of the membrane?

Since the early 1900's scientist have known about the cell membrane being composed of hydro-phobic and -philic heads, but it wasn't until 1972 that Singer and Nicolson created the Fluid Mosaic Model. So I would presume that the scientist of the middle 20th century had ample knowledge of the properties of the lipid bi-layer. [/quote]

And it even shows you how to make soap.

my chem book show's that!!!!
cool book . but when i try and reg.. this come's up!

Sorry, registrations are closed.

Due the amount of new users we've been getting lately, we are forced to close the new account registrations for a while.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

could it be the inflow of science fourm member;s!!!!

If someone would send me the file then I can host the download for Science Forum members from one of my websites or IS might let us host it directly from here. PM me if you have it and would be willing to email it to me.