Oh how this post hits close to my heart.

I could go on and on about how much I resent what has been done to innovation and education in the name of the perverse, patronizing policy of protecting people from themselves... but instead I'll just say thanks for a glimpse of a less misguided time in the history of amateur chemistry.

Also, in the name of stirring some discussion: who among the BBgadgets readers knows a good chemical supplier or two not skiddish about selling to the general public? United Nuclear is my only source at the moment and it's always nice to expand your selection (and shop around for deals, for that matter).

And it gave... Monsanto !
No wait... It was in 1901.

Even Einstein complained about the elimination of fun in science education:
"... It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly."
http://learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html

The sad thing isn't so much about the erosion of education. Rather, the fact that possession of half the common chemicals in these old-school kits would probably get you arrested on suspicion of "terrorism" nowadays.

Not to take anything away from the actual subject matter, but the EXCESSIVE use of CAPITALIZATION of RANDOM words makes me feel like I'm BACK in the 90's reading an INSANE RANT on USENET.

PAULT:

It was happening long before Terrorism, really, very long before that was an everyday word.

At first, there were safety concerns, idiot-proofing everything, battening down any potential vectors for litigation... this was the modus operandi for a long time indeed. Then, in addition to this continued trend, got lumped on the associations and insinuations, which continue to manage to insult me on a still regular basis, that home chemists are all clandestine drug manufacturers. This and the march of the safety-police joined forces and marched onward into a safe, drug-free future where chemicals were things you read about in books and answered questions about on the SAT without ever touching.

Then came big bad daddy Terrorism, adding a third prong to the pitchfork thrust sanctimoniously into the collective ass of amateur chemists everywhere, skewering them with the assertation that with the threats of killing others with stupidity, cooking meth, or plotting to blow up your senator, the odds were so low of you NOT being a comic-book villian that it wasn't worth it to even respect claims to the contrary as worth listening to.

With three different movie-plot threats to associate you with, it's obvious (duh) that you're bound to be plotting to do SOME horrendous harm to humanity with that peroxide you bought to show your son how catalysts work.

Basically, many people are stupid, and are quite content to assume it impossible that anyone smarter than them isn't doing evil things or just pretending not to be stupid. These evil nerds should therefore be kept tightly bound to ensure a safe world for the mediocre.

This makes me really sad.

I'm a 20 year old biochemistry major, and I think I got in on the tail end of legitimate childhood chemistry sets when I was little. I can't say that sparked my interest but it definitely encouraged it.

If only knowledge were as easy to spread around as fear and stupidity...things would be better, I think.
#6: I agree entirely. In fact the major things the politicians seem to be worried about all seem to have first seen the light of day as "sensational" pulp fiction/ B-movie plots.
Finally, I think that a knowledge of chemistry is the key to actual power in this life, much more so than any "knowledge" about religious dogma...by "actual power" I mean shifting mass around in 4-D space-time....encouragement of this knowledge ought to be a fundamental goal of our educational systems. Last time I looked, it still was, at least where I'm from.

*sighs*

An elegant chemistry set, from a more civilised age.

@AIRPILLO:

United Nuclear is probably the best bet. I don't know if places like Sigma Aldrich, VWR, Alfa Aesar, TCI, or Strem Chemicals sell to individuals (possibly not) but those are choices that I use in my lab (although a good number of things from Strem lately have been of questionable quality).

Good luck!

Yep. IANAC but I loved chemistry so much that I went to summer school to get my Grade 13 credit that I didn't even need to graduate!.

Yes I am a geek and proud of it.

It was great: We had four solid hours each day, and the teacher was one of the best I have ever had. Experiments went on for days because we were the only class using our lab.

My grandfather was a pharmacist and back in his time (C 1900) he made a lot of his prescriptions from scratch. I have been told that his cough medicine was the best. Of course the active ingredient was.... You guessed it: cocaine. Ah the good old days!

I inherited one of his more decorative mortar an pestle sets and have it proudly displayed in my living room.

I hope that people finally become sane again and end Prohibition.
Is it any wonder that Americans for the most part are scientifically illiterate?
Airpillo..don't even try to get things from Aldrich they will report you to the DEA. Remember ,possession of lab glass can get you in trouble.
A guy in my area was busted for having a chem lab...he was eventually let go but it cost him money,reputation and all his chem equipment.
He was NOT making any drugs.
The USA can no longer afford the luxury of the "War On Some Drugs".
I had a great chem set as a kid. If I had that same chem set today i would be put in jail.

You mean modern liberal paternalism has a downside? No, it can't be. Must be Halliburton's fault.

This brings back those great days of burning holes in my parent's picnic table.

When my kids got old enough I started looking for a decent chemistry set for them and not only found only lame chemicals, 'safety' plastic bottles, but insane warning labels. (Reagent grade sodium chloride with a warning to wash hands after using, and not to get in mouth or eyes?) Instead, I got them into model rockets, which can be used to teach chemistry, structural engineering, aerodynamics, and systems design.

If only the nanny's would realize that a dull, bored mind is exponentially more harmful than a little exposure to exothermic reactions, the world would be a much better place.

DRBLACK @12,

There's a War on Science here in the UK as well, don't feel like you're alone. When I was at school, we'd have wonderful three-hour chem lessions, where we'd get to actually Do Science. And, if we'd been doing well, then we might get to blow stuff up.

Apart from making science hugely fun, this also taught something massively important:

I, as a child, could do something that was difficult and dangerous. And if I did it right, it would work, and I would be fine. Every single time. It would only become dangerous if I did it wrong - at which point it would be dangerous, every single time.

That's a hugely important lesson to teach kids. A reliance on their own competence, the connection between cause and effect, the repeatability of same.

I asked my 14-year-old neiceoid about the science she was doing in school, and came away from the conversation biting down a scream of frustration. Terrible, really. The answer would seem to be: "It's too scary dangerbaderous. No, you can't has titration".

*sigh*

Ah... almost makes me want to go back to my college chemistry class and take another crack at it... almost.

The amusing thing to note here is, I, today, am extremely safety minded. When handling chemicals, even mildly hazardous ones, I treat them with respect, and adhere religiously to the safety rules of being responsible with them and being prepared to manage the inevitable mistake that I may make with them at some point.

This was not something I learned by keeping my hands off and being shown how to do it by someone else who was qualified to handle these dangerous substances. Quite the contrary, I learned that respect by making a few mistakes in a supervised (and occasionally unsupervised) manner and seeing the results firsthand.

Regardless of what any well-meaning safety nazis (a jocular use of such a term, mind you) might think, one of the best ways to learn lessons efficiently is to make mistakes. Ensuring those mistakes are made in a supervised environment equipped to handle them should they be significant is more than enough to assure, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that all parties involved possess a reasonable degree of safety. That's all we can ever expect in life, anyhow. You may damn well be bitten by a deadly arachnid inside your bicycle helmet as you put it on to be safe, there's no guarantee of safety in this world and we need to limit ourselves in how adamant we are about grinding down all the universe's sharp corners, lest we all wind up sitting around and stewing in the biggest special-ed class ever constructed.

You know, there really is an Official War On Fun...

http://www.waronfun.org/waronfun.php

-Dr. Zoltan!

Notice that just the lab glassware may be incriminating as it is in Texas but capitalism works - Tim O'Reilly is publishing a great book on chemistry in the home Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments by Bob Thompson complete with suggested sources.

Their catalog from 1956, along with a lesson book, are on ebay now: http://tinyurl.com/5psxbl

I'll put in a more explicit plug for that O'Reilly book (Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments) that Clark mentioned in #19. I'm not a chemistry buff or even all that interested in it, but I picked it up after it was covered in an early BB post and was not-so-literally blown away by its production, content and style, and attention to detail. Thompson really put his heart into this book. It stands alongside the best of the Forrest Mims electronics books as a guide to amateur scientists/experimenters.

It almost makes me want to risk the wrath of the DEA and order some chemicals.

Back in da 40's Poular Science (Monthly) had an "Home Chemist" section. Some were reproduced in

Kennedth M Swezey
Chemistry Magic
McGraw Hill 1956

There was also —

Raymond Yates
How to Make and Use a small Chemical Laboratory :

A book for begginers setting forth the fundamentals of chemistry in easily understood terms.

The many interesting experiments, together with the wealth of chemical knowledge contained herein, make this book indispensable to the student chemist and amateur expimenter.

Norman W Henley Publishing Co.
New York 1939

One of the lab supply companies in the 60' would give you a 10% discount if you were a chemistry student.

Hard Times for Curious Minds
By Oliver Sacks
Letter to the Editor New York Times 13v99

There has been an increasing restriction on the availability of many chemicals for the
past 40 years, and the recent events in Colorado have underlined how horrific misuse
can be. But chemicals have other uses, too, not least as vital educational tools for
individuals and schools - and these are endangered by excessive regulation.

One thinks of the days, a generation ago, when a boy or girl could set up a chemistry
lab at home and get everything needed from a chemical supply house or even a
hardware store. I myself had such a lab as a boy, long before I did science at school,
with (now I come to think of it) chemicals enough to poison or blow up much of greater
London. I had my share of stinks and bangs, but I never hurt myself or anyone else.
Having such chemicals taught one respect and responsibility, as well as providing intel-
lectual delight and fun.

Many of my colleagues had similar introductions to science via chemistry, and some of
them injured themselves in the process. And yet they remember their chemical days
with passion, as an awakening to the pleasures of science.

The importance of fun, of intellectual play, in youth - including playing with dangerous
chemicals - was perfectly understood in the last century, when books like Griffin's
"Chemical Recreations" and Pepper's "Playbook of Metals" inspired, delighted and
educated generations. But many of the chemicals available to us 40 or 50 years ago
can no longer be obtained by individuals and are now severely restricted even in
schools and industrial labs. One friend of mine, an analytical chemist at the
Smithsonian, has had to resort to hiding some of his own reagents, lest they be
confiscated according to Government regulations.

Linus Pauling, in an autobiographical sketch, describes how, as an 11 year-old, he
obtained potassium cyanide, a deadly poison, from a local druggist:

"Just think of the differences today. A young person gets interested in chemistry and is
given a chemistry set. But it doesn't contain potassium cyanide. It doesn't even contain
copper sulphate or anything else interesting because all the interesting chemicals are
considered dangerous substances. Therefore these budding young chemists don't have
a chance to do anything engrossing with their chemistry sets. As I look back, I think it is
pretty remarkable that Mr. Ziegler, this friend of the family would have so easily turned
over one, third of an ounce of potassium cyanide to me, an 11-year-old boy."

In this same sketch, Pauling speaks of the delightful (and some. times hazardous)
experiments he did in his bedroom, and his sense that it was such a spontaneous and
playful experimenting that set the stage for his entire creative life. Would Pauling have
become Pauling without this early play?

One wonders whether the present atmosphere, with its nervous, insurance-driven
restrictions, its precluding of hands-on chemistry, may not have dire effects on
upcoming young scientists, and indeed on all of us. El

Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, is the author of "Awakenings," "The Man Who Mistook His
Wife for a Hat" and a forthcoming memoir of a chemical boyhood.

#1 - have you tried Carolina? http://www.carolina.com/home.do

They're mostly an education company, but from the looks of their site they'll sell to non-educators.

The "war-on-fun" is part of the dumbing-down campaign by our ummm... leadership. Once everyone is dumb and afraid, they're hoping, their loneliness will be at an end.

Fortunately, the world is still full of chemicals whereever you go. A clever youngster could still assemble a nice DIY array of reagents and solvents and make stuff. If someone would write the book. Organic chem is more fun than inorganic anyway.

JPhilby-Yes you are right about assembly of a DIY home lab and the need for the right book but I must disagree on one point. Organic chemistry is NOT more fun than inorganic per se. Synthesis of ether, chloroform, benzene, phenol etc is definately still in the realms of home chemistry but inorganic chemistry is definately dynamic also. Don't forget thermite, coordinate chemistry(which is really a branch of organometallic chemistry), zeolites, and metallurgy. Most of the elements are metals and the compounds are of every color of the rainbow and then some. Yeilds are usually higher and sometimes oxidations/reductions can be instanteous and the struggle to find the right solvent usually is not a concern. Obviously, I am biased to inorganic but hopefully I pointed out the more obvious pros.

IMHO-Extensive work in inorganic experiemnting should be followed by extensive coordinate transistion metal experimentation then introduction to Organic sythesis of smaller active molecules. After this a budding chemist will have a wide knowledge of technique and will be able to at least contemplate proceedures unknown to him/her.

So how many breaking discoveries are made in Chemistry these days?

It's still just barely possible to find places that will sell to individuals, or that don't enforce their "authorized users only" policy as long as you don't order questionable materials. But those who know about these places are reluctant to divulge them, for fear that increased attention will shut them down.

Despite increasing regulations and prohibitions, eBay is still a useful source for many chemicals. There are a few sellers that carry a wide range of chemicals, although they usually are far from cheap. There's also a wide range of sellers that carry a few chemicals, and some of them ARE cheap.

Finally, there are still some chemicals lurking in hardware stores, pool stores, and so forth. Sodium hydroxide (lye) disappeared from most shelves a year or so ago, but it's back, at least in my local (North Carolina) hardware store. Most drain cleaners are heavily adulterated, but you can usually find one shelf carrying "Rooto", "Liquid Fire", or some other brand of concentrated sulfuric acid. Phosphorus is flat-out unobtainable, and iodine is effectively banned, but there are still several ways to get chlorine.

Here's one good resource for figuring out where to look for chemicals:

Readily Available Chemicals