re: #28 ProTARDISLiberal

I’m going through various XKCD things, and found a few interesting things.

Dioxygen Diflouride

And he’s just getting warmed up, if that’s the right phrase to use for something that detonates things at -180C (that’s -300 Fahrenheit, if you only have a kitchen thermometer). The great majority of Streng’s reactions have surely never been run again. The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn’t react it with: ammonia (“vigorous”, this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine (“violent explosion”, so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth…), and on, and on. If the paper weren’t laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you’d swear it was the work of a violent lunatic. I ran out of vulgar expletives after the second page. A. G. Streng, folks, absolutely takes the corrosive exploding cake, and I have to tip my asbestos-lined titanium hat to him.

It concluded with this:

Can someone explain what the 433 kcal of energy means in this reaction?

Sounds like a set of experiments custom designed to get rid of those pesky extra grad assistants you have hanging around. “Oh Hans, could you mix 3 ml of this into that beaker over there? I’ll be right back, left something in the car”

RBS
Who can’t believe people are so tickled with his Rainbow Conf Flag w/ Hello Kitties