From sci.chem Tue Dec  3 15:09:50 1996
From: c.street2@ukonline.co.uk (Chris Street)

JCEVANS@BIOLOGY.uwaterloo.ca (J Evans) wrote:

>This is a milder accident tale.  A friend of mine was teaching a lab in an 
>unnamed western college when two students came up and told him that their 
>bunsen burner wouldn't light and that, yes, they had left the gas on full 
>blast while they came to ask him about it.  He ran over to the bench to find 
>(to his relief) that the bunsen burner was hooked up to the air line by 
>mistake.  After sorting this out, he turned to the next bench just in time to 
>see the reaction of another student pair who, not to be outdone, had hooked up 
>THEIR bunsen burner to a high-pressure water outlet.....
>	Then there was the student who set the entire lab bench on fire 
>because s(he) not only boiled alcohol over a bunsen flame, but chose to do so 
>in a cracked beaker....

I have seen the interesting effect of a gas tap connected to the water
tap before now.

You see this with a condenser assemby for a reflux. What happened was
with a mass of rubber hose, the condenser was connected to the bunse,
and the gas was connected to the water

Student turns water on, turns gas on, and bunsen failed to light.
Student looks bemused by this.

Meanwhile, the water is pouring into the gas supply, and jets of water
are now emerging from the other running bunsens, as the gas system
fills with water. The looks of utter confusion on the rest of class
was a sight to behold.
The Original Mad alCHEMIST <c.street2@ukonline.co.uk>
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