WEBVTT - Kids' Chemistry Sets: KABOOM! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.680 Jerry's here too, floating around somewhere out there. And that 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:18.919 makes the stuff you should know. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:20.040 That's right. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.760 You thought of this one, and Dave helped us out 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.080 with the research on chemistry sets. I will go ahead 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.040 and to say that I never had a chemistry set, 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.680 but you know darn well that somebody in my family did, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.720 was it Scott? Oh, of course he did. He was 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.280 voted most likely to have a chemistry set in preschool. 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.760 That's a Did he do anything magical with it? 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.280 I mean, I just remember him having it in it, 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.360 being around the house, and you know, he's just always 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.720 had a more scientifically minded brain than me and has 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.880 always been smarter than me from the drop. So he 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:01.920 was into chemistry sets, and I was into you know, 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:03.080 baseball cards. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.000 Well, I was into baseball cards too. I was gonna say, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.880 don't feel bad because I didn't have a chemistry set either, 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.880 but I did have like an electrical set, like the 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.600 electrical version of a chemistry So, yeah, you do all 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.960 sorts of stuff, Yeah, yeah, And I distinctly remember just 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.520 hitting it with a hammer because I had no idea 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.039 what was going on with that thing. 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:23.640 You can't build a circuit. 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.399 No, you could put a gun to my head and 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.160 be like, build a circuit, and I'd just start hitting 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:30.840 it with a hammer. I think you know. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:32.840 Who got good at that is a friend of the 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.399 show and Palavars in real. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.160 Life, David Reese. Oh yeah, he. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.080 Got into circuitry and like building and refurbishing old like 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.920 musical electronics and pedals and stuff like that. 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.680 What an interesting dude. If you don't know who Dave 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.520 Reese is, yeah, go look up. What's the name of 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.680 this book about artisanal pencil sharpened? 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:55.960 I think it's how to sharpen pencils. See outside A 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:57.720 great TV show that I'm not sure if you can 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.040 find it, but you can try. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.040 Called Going Deep with day Man. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:01.760 It was so good. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.160 But you know, it's like how to shake someone's hand. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.560 Stuff like that seems very intuitive, but not through David's 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.320 odd point of view. 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.160 He also was on Dick Town with Hodgmen. 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.160 Right, that's right, and he can build the heck out 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.079 of a circuit. I bet you had a chemistry set. 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.400 Too, very nice. I know that Dave Russ, who helps 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:21.919 us with this, said that he had one of those 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.480 electronic sets too. Dave's pretty sharp, so I'm presuming he 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:26.680 didn't hit it with the hammer. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:29.639 But this is a pretty fun when we're going to 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.800 talk about the history of chemistry sets, which, believe it 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.440 or not, go back to the eighteenth century when they 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:42.400 were called chemical chests. But this was pre let's make 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.960 this a toy for kids. It was like, Hey, if 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:49.880 you're a university student or a professional or amateur young chemist, 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:51.720 button chemist. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:53.080 Do you like to wear capes? 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.679 Yeah, exactly, you like a smock, get a chemistry set, right. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:02:59.840 So the first one, actually they traced it back to 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.720 I named You're gonna make me say his name? Huh. 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:06.120 Watch this, yeah, Johann Friedrich August Goudding. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.600 Nay, not bad, may mean not bad. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:09.959 That was dead on the nose. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.000 I think it was perfect. 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.720 I think I can hear our German listeners giving me 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:16.200 a standing ovation right now. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:17.519 Ah vundebar. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.160 He came up with a chemistry chest in I think 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.960 seventeen eighty nine, if I didn't say that already, and 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.120 it was called garay for this a portable chest of 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.480 chemistry or a complete collection of chemical tests for the 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:37.520 use of chemists, physicians, mineralogists, metallurgists, scientific artists, manufacturers, farmers 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.280 and cultivators of natural philosophy and party boys. 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.520 And again this thing wasn't a toy. 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:50.200 It had thirty five chemicals, had a very robust like balance, 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.000 you know, like a balance for weighing things, had a 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:54.680 mortar and pestle. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.920 Of course, it had a book. 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:58.360 And this is kind of as you'll see a key 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.760 with all chemistry sets is a come with a book 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:06.200 of experiments. Otherwise you're just going to be dangerous. You 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.520 might be anyway, But this one had about one. 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.280 Hundred and fifty experiments. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.640 And interestingly it had this platinum foil included that they 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.280 would not include now because this stuff was very valuable. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.400 I believe in today dollars would be worth about a 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:21.359 thousand bucks. 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:26.520 Wow, if the price is right, that's right. The reason 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.320 they include platinum foil is platinum is a really valuable 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.440 and useful catalyst and a lot of chemical reactions. It 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:33.680 wasn't just to show. 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.920 Off, no, of course not so. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.880 There were other early chemistry sets too. Like you said 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.520 they were for grown ups, they were for chemistry professionals, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.520 and people used to train to be chemistry professionals and 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.800 go to college for it. Still do. But there was 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.640 a guy at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school all 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.800 the way back in seventeen ninety seven named James Woodhouse, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.520 and he was a professor of chemistry, and he also 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.560 had a nice little sideline selling chemistry chests to his 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.320 students and being like, you really won't get an A 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.960 or even maybe past this class if you don't buy 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:08.000 my chemistry set. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:09.400 Yeah, not bad. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.680 It's like when the professor wrote the book that you're 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.200 exact textbook. One little just sort of fun fact that 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.719 Dave threw in here was this was pre test tube. 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.800 They didn't have test tubes yet. So in both of 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:27.160 these early eighteenth century chemistry chests they said to use wineglasses. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:29.919 Very nice, very swanky. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:31.680 Yeah. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.039 So there was also even back then, well maybe not 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.400 back in the seventeen hundreds, but certainly very quickly after that. No, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.920 I'm going to go ahead and say the seventeen hundreds 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:48.320 in everybody was like this is not just like interesting 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.479 and you can do stuff with it. This can be 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.400 kind of fun too, Like it's fun to take two 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.200 chemicals and suddenly make these two clear things turn blue. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.520 Who doesn't love that kind of thing. And so there 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.760 was always a certain element of magic to chemistry, and 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:10.040 in particular chemistry sets, and eventually people started like selling 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.320 them as that, not just as that, but there was 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:19.800 a transition from just for chemical professionals chemists, to for 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:22.960 chemists but also for chemists who'd like to have a 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:23.400 good time. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.840 Yeah, I mean there were and we talked about this before, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.839 like scientific demonstrations in the you know, nineteenth century could 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.200 be everything from just like straight up science to a 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.800 little little magic, a little showmanship, involved a little flare. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.599 People like Faraday were doing stuff like this in public. 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:46.920 There was a chemist named Frederick Acam I guess Accum 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:50.240 who would do these big public demonstrations that were, you know, 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.120 kind of part magic show, part science, and you could 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.880 even buy one of his sets. He had a chemistry set. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:57.560 I don't think they were called chess at this point, 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.159 called alums still called the chests. Oh yeah, there it 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:08.719 is in the title Acom's Chest of Chemical Amusement again, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.560 which you know lends itself to amusement. I think that 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.920 was the booklet was called Chemical amusement colon a series 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.960 of curious and instructive experiments in chemistry which are easily 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.560 performed and unattended by danger. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.400 That's important right there. Yeah, because one of the things 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.040 that kind of got all over chemistry sets over the 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.680 years was safety. And this was even like back in 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.160 the early nineteenth century that they were like, these can 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.360 be dangerous. So yeah, that was a big, a big 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.000 thing that he included that in the title of the 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:42.160 booklet that came with it. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.240 Yeah, for sure, and all of this, you know, talk 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.200 of sort of magic and fun is a is a 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.360 long way to get to the fact that by the 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.559 sort of early ish eighteen hundreds and like eighteen thirty five, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.200 they started saying, hey, these like we should sell these 0:07:58.200 --> 0:07:58.640 to kids. 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:00.120 These are fun. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:01.760 You know who's trustworthy kids? 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:02.480 Exactly. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.280 There was one called the Eedies Youth Laboratory from eighteen 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.560 thirty five. A few years later was Statham's Students Chemical Laboratory, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:12.920 and then by eighteen fifty six they had one called 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:14.680 Pike's Youth Chemical Cabinet. 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:20.560 Wow, chemical cabinet sounds amazing, it does. And then by 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.040 the time the twentieth century rolled around, so they were 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.000 making these things here or there for centuries by now 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.080 finally they were like, Okay, our market is young people 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:36.280 who are enthusiastic about chemistry, but also again wear capes 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.160 because they like magic. And one of the good examples 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.360 that Dave turned up about this was came out in 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:47.200 nineteen hundred. It was Kingsley's Primus Chemical Magic and Practical 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:52.120 Chemistry Cabinet, and it had everything you needed to carry 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:57.160 out like these serious chemistry experiments. And it came with 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.880 a booklet too that had plenty of instructions, but it 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.960 also had a lot of stuff to set things on 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.400 fire and instructions on how to essentially make fireworks and 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:08.120 things like that. 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.800 Yeah, I would love to see a Venn diagram of 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.640 gen X kids who had chemistry sets. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:18.520 Yeah, who could. 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.200 Pull a rabbit out of a hat or a card 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.559 out of somebody's ear and like knew how to do 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.079 the Rubik's cube and draw a flip book. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.240 That's the trifecta. 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.560 Yeah, that was my brother in a nutshell. 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.000 Sure it's like oh Ruber's cube, Sure you. 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:34.920 Want to see how to solve it. 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:37.520 But he wouldn't even say watch this. He'd be like, here, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:38.320 let me help you. 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:39.679 Right exactly. 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.320 I also, just as a little side note, I'm like, 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.640 why did they call that a primus chemistry cabinet? So 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.640 it turns out primus, one of the definitions of it 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.240 is a small stove that burns paraffin, so presumably that 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.480 was included in the kid as like a Bunsen burner. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.040 And it went a little deeper. I was like, okay, 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.040 why is the band Imus called Primus? And it turns 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.640 out they were originally called the Primates. There was another 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.200 band called the Primates that said we will sue the 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.520 pants off of you if you call yourself the Primates. 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:14.320 So less Claypool and friends looked up primate definitions and 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.920 words and found out that Primus is the root word 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.240 for Primates, so they went with Primus instead. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.120 Look at that one of my most hated bands of 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:27.040 all time. Really yeah, I hate Primus, And you know 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.720 what I'm gonna hear from Primis fans. 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.480 You are not yuck and you'r yum. 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.640 I love for you to love what you love, but 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.560 I've got to be able to hate Primis as well. 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.240 Sure they can't yung. You're yuck. Yeah, like everybody, It's 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:42.920 not like you're telling them not to listen, or that 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:44.120 they suck for listening. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.720 No, I'm sure they're great for certain years. It's just 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:49.040 that's not mine. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.959 They have some good songs, though Chuck Jerry was a 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.800 race car driver. You honestly don't like that song, no, okay, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:57.360 all right. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.280 They also sound the same to me. They all sound 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.960 like his bass just all sounds. 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:06.600 Like that was really good impression actually, and. 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.480 All the singing and just Downrue too. 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:11.920 Yeah, you don't like Primis. 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.640 I don't like it. Checks out. One of my very 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.600 best friends loves Primus, and so you know we cannot we. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.680 Can all co exist, You're like, so I can say that, Yeah, exactly. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.680 A lot of my friends are Primis fans. All right, 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.840 let's take a break and we'll enter the twenty twenties, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.280 twentieth century right after this. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:39.640 Sure loss a much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui. 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.600 Okay, So I think, like I said, in the early 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.480 twenty century, they were like, yep, young boys who are 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.800 interested in chemistry, And let's go back and emphasize this boys. 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.360 That's who we're going to market these things too. Yeah, 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.600 this is who chemistry sets belonged to. Like little Boy 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.560 scientists who have an interest in chemistry, and the thing 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.640 that went basically throughout the twentieth century, at least up 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.640 until like the sixties. If you bought a chemistry set 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.720 for your kid, like that was the first step toward 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.000 being a professional chemist as they grew up. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.280 Yeah, and you were guaranteed to have a little boy 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:35.640 on the front box. 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:36.800 One hundred percent. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:38.559 That's just the way it was back then. 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.360 And we'll get to more of that sort of weird 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.360 sexism and science that still continues today in a little bit. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.080 But one of the big players, there were a couple 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.800 of big ones. The first one was the Kim Craft Company. 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.760 Kimkraft Chemistry Set in nineteen sixteen was the first really 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.680 sort of popular toy chemistry set produced by the Porter 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.360 Chemical Company out of Merryland, and it was about a 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.640 buck fifty to maybe ten bucks if you were pretty 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.160 well healed, because that's it's about forty to three hundred 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:12.240 bucks today, so some pretty decent money you'd have to 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.200 throw down on the high end chemistry set back then. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:17.400 Yeah, these had test tubes. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.880 By this point, you had an alcohol lamp, of course, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.200 you had your weights and balances, and you had lots 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:23.120 of chemicals. 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.640 Yeah, this is like a serious chemistry set. It had 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.679 like all this stuff you needed, and it was substantial 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:35.160 in form right. The manual also was like we're going 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.640 to do some serious stuff. One of the first experiments 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.719 from this manual came from nineteen nineteen. That edition is 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.320 called Combination of Elements, and basically, you put powdered zinc 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.839 and sulfur on a metal spoon and start heating it. 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.920 Be sure to quote keep your face at a little distance. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.880 And then as the mass becomes hot, the sulfur takes 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.440 fire and burns, and then the mixture starts to swell 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.600 to a bulky porous mass while on fire, and then 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.200 suddenly there's a flash and sulfur and zinc unite, chemically 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.920 forming zinc sulfide, and hopefully you have your eyebrows left afterwards. 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.520 Yeah, it's funny, Like the literal quote was keeping your 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.000 face at a little distance, and the first three times 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.120 I read that, I read it as keeping your little 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.240 face at a distance. 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.479 Oh, I wish they'd said that that's adorable. 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:23.880 It was. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:25.680 It should have been keep your little face at a 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.600 great distance, because that was dangerous. There was also something 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.080 called fire ink, which is exactly what you think is 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.360 you would combine, or you may not know what you combined, 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.000 but you know what the result probably is. You combine 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.320 potassium nitrate and water in a test tube and then 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.880 write on a piece of paper and light that on fire, 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.080 and you know what you have spelled out is now 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:47.520 on fire. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.840 Yeah, so the potassium nitrate water is the ink, the 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.120 fire ink, as it were, which sounds pretty cool. 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:53.280 Man. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.920 Imagine being like, hello, how are you suddenly on fire 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.520 on a piece of paper. Your friend's kind of think 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.960 you're pretty I literally wrote neat with an exclamation point 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:03.720 after that one. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.560 Yeah, but you would also probably be more likely to 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:08.440 write butthole or something like that. 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:09.440 Then, hey, how are you? 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.600 That's true? You know that's totally true. Also, I want 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.920 to take back the word literally. I'm really trying hard 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.600 to abandon that. Even when it's properly used. It's just 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:22.400 so so wrong these days. 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.640 Well, good for you, I think, literally, good for you. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:28.600 So what else? 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.280 Well, that was another experiment. This is so fun. It's 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:33.440 called making a fuse. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.720 That basically all you need to know is like, you know, 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:38.800 you can you can probably make things that'll blow up. 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:39.760 So you're gonna need a fuse. 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.600 Yeah, and that went really well with the manufacture of 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:48.000 colored fire, which was homemade fireworks. It was genuinely and 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:53.360 sincerely a flash in a pan because you would put 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.840 these different metals in and make for you make gunpowder. 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.440 The little kid would make gunpowder and then depending on 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.120 the chemical or metal that they added, it would burn 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.240 a different color in a pan as a flash. Genuinely. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.920 Yeah, if you found another some cool research on like 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.560 just how dangerous some of these chemicals. 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:14.960 Were, right, Oh yeah, let's talk about those. 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:16.480 Yeah. What else? What else was in there? 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:18.960 In some of these sets that came out in the 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:24.520 twentieth century, there was iodine solution, which sounds kind of innocuous, 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.800 but they figured out over time that you could use 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.520 that to make meth with Okay, you could also if 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:32.640 you ate two grams of it or more, you would 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.080 probably die. I think ammonium nitrate was in that, which 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.080 is frequently used to make bombs. 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:40.680 Yeah. 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:42.600 What else, Well, one thing you could do that was 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.760 fun is you could make smoke bombs right with that 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.520 potassium nitrate, which is I don't know if you mentioned 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.400 it's also in gunpowder. True, So a lot of these 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.720 experiments were like watch it flame, spark, or boom in 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:56.720 a small way. 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.800 Another one used to show up with sodium cyanide, which 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.720 is more commonly referred to as cyanide, and you would 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:10.600 bind two metals like make essentially dissolved gold into water, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.399 metals into water. It's pretty neat, that's what it's used for. 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.880 But it's also a rapidly acting toxin that can kill 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.280 you dead pretty easily. And this was one of those 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.160 chemicals in the glass vials that arrived in the chemistry 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:24.440 sets for kids back then. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.919 Yeah, and speaking of glass, or even some chemistry sets 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.760 that had the material and instruction for blowing glass, which 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.600 is no doubt a super cool, awesome thing to learn, 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.199 but it's you know, it's not something it should be 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.080 drying in their bedroom. 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.679 No, I mean, it has to get really hot to 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.920 melt glass enough to blow it. One of my favorites 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:51.560 is calcium hypochlorite, which is one of the main ingredients 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.520 for chlorine gas, which was I think the first chemical 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.199 weapon to ever be banned by the world. So you 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:02.159 could make a chemical weapon in your bedroom if you 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:03.160 knew what you were doing. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.440 And as we're saying, all this, we should point out 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:11.240 that these early kits and sets did not offer things 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.199 like eye protection, like not even a little pair of 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.200 like fun goggles, you know, like, hey kid, these are 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.720 cute and fun. You look like a real scientist if 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.640 you wear these, like just didn't come with them. And 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:24.080 the whole thing with you know that we tied it 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.960 into earlier with magic. A lot of them have like 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.640 hares or like you know, your science experiments you can do. 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.439 But also here's some just really fun, like sort of 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.159 literal magic tricks you can do. 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:39.880 Right. There was one that's called the magic handkerchief. And 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.320 you take a handkerchief and you put I think blue 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.199 cobalt on it, and as you dry it out, I 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.399 think it turns white. You're no blue, and you can 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.720 change it to white magically by it instructs you to 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:53.600 ball it up and rub it in your hands for 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.480 a few minutes. Any magic trick that takes a few 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.920 minutes of repetitive motion is not a magic trick worth doing. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.000 But it's what was great is it said, now here's 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.159 where you have some fun, and then it went on 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.120 to the next instruction. So these these were really mid 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:14.440 century written instruction booklets. That really captured the time. If 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:15.160 you think. 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.159 About it, Shall we take a break? 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.520 Oh my, you bet? 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:22.400 All right? 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.640 That was very insure, but we're doing it anyway. We'll 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:25.200 be right back. 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:33.240 We loss so much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui. 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.400 All right, So you're getting these chemistry sets. Another big 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.600 part of the whole sort of branding thing for these 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.080 companies making these and this was just sort of big 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.960 back in those days in the nineteen fifties was. 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.199 Like clubs, like kids clubs. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.600 So if you got a chemistry set, it was a 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:07.879 pretty good chance it would come with like a membership 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.440 in like a science club, and there could be local 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.840 chapters that you get together with your friends and things 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.800 you could mail in for Probably a magazine is involved, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.680 like a quarterly magazine. Certainly in the case of kim 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.840 Kraft they had the Science Club and the Kimcraft Chemists. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.760 Was there was there rag that they sent out, which 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.919 was usually just ads for more stuff to buy, but 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.679 there are they were like kind of fun little stories 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.520 like where a kid would like save the day through 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.280 some cool chemistry experiment. Yeah. 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.800