When Nic was about twelve years old, he saw a movie about diamonds and decided he would make a diamond himself.
He took an old water heater, an air compressor, carbon from an old dry cell battery, assorted jars, hoses and funnels, went to the store and bought carbide, which one could do in those days.
He bought a gas mask, heavy gloves and a roll of asbestos stuff which he intended to wrap around his legs.
Before actually beginning to make the diamond, however, he thought he would do a trial run. He started the water dripping on the carbide and ran around to the water heater to strike a match (he was not wearing his protective gear.) Nothing happened. He lit another match and nothing happened. He lit a third match, there was a huge explosion, he screamed and went running home.
His mother immediately called the doctor, who made a house call (they did this in those days) and found that, apart from lots of rust, Nic was not seriously harmed.
I love this story because it tells so much about my husband: His willingness to take a risk, his sometimes caution, and his idea that many difficult things may be accomplished by ingenuity and sheer persistence.
3 comments:
wow! I don't know what carbide is, and I doubt my 12 year old students would know either or even where to get it.
It's something which makes acetylene gas--used in welding, I think-- when water is added...I think they used to have it in kids' chemistry sets. It's just as well for your students not to have it!
My best friend Clare and I blew all the basement windows out of her house one Saturday morning. We mixed a number of interesting items from her older brother's chemistry set and put them to cooking in an old pot over his little hot plate. When things began to get bigger in an ominous way we ran up and out the basement without turning off the heat of course. With a mighty boom there was broken glass in all the window wells and some grey goo scattered across the basement walls...happily not across Clare and I
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