The Chemportal

Recently Kyle at The Chemblog has posted about a recent "accident" that has happened in his lab, that is, due to his part.  Several other 'chemists' have posted their recollections of stupidity in the comment log.

While I don't have any spectacular inputs to this dialogue, I do remember some small mishappenings in an independent research course that I took.  The professor had this nice apparatus which he had designed through the glass blower shop that was within the chemistry department at the time, the total cost of constructing it was ~$500.00 due to the nooks and crannies that were a part of its very small design.  This apparatus was to be implemented into an experiment involving a potentiometer and was supposed to have been unique since it could be hooked right up to the degasser.  Anyways, while adjusting the pH, I had naively (and stupidly) put some sodium hydroxide pellets in there without any prior calculations; this was incredibly stupid in hindsight since the volume consisted of less then 30 mL.  It seems that the sodium hydroxide pellets had interacted with the glassware since it had broken when I had cleaned it.  An even more spectacular event was what followed; the professor himself, after having it repaired, had adjusted it onto the degasser inappropriately, and the apparatus went flying to the floor during the degassing cycle, shattering it into several pieces.  Fortunately, he didn't charge me with breaking it the first time.

Another small mishap was when I was constructing Silver Chloride electrodes through electrolysis for the first time, that is without any supervision.......after seeing green color diffuse from a point in the solution a couple of times, some people at the lab next door came into the lab, claiming that they had smelled Chlorine from that side of the lab.  Well, it was probably Chlorine, and they had exited the lab chuckling after seeing that I was apparently clueless as to what was going on within the experiment right in front of me.