budullewraagh

temperature plays a big role- you can spill a few mLs of 18M sulfuric acid on your hand at room temperature and hardly notice any burns if you wash it off quickly, but it will very rapidly burn through your skin if it is boiling.

alcohols may react with bases. for example, NaH definitely will deprotonate an alcohol to form an alkoxide. even NaOH will deprotonate some alcohols. consider what happens when you leave solid NaOH on paper- it collects moisture and the paper turns greenish yellow. while the MeO- anion is more basic than the OH- anion (which is why we don't see a reaction between MeOH and OH-) different types of alcohols may react. the reason we see a reaction between NaOH and paper is that the sugars in the paper are filled with vicinal hydroxyl groups, which makes each one of them more acidic. also, there's that carbonyl, which makes the adjacent OH groups more acidic. but why do alcohols react with acids? the acids protonate the alcohols to form R-OH2+, which undergoes elimination via E1, then you have the conjugate base of the acid attack the resulting carbocation. (consider HCl+ROH reaction) EDIT: merged two posts also, i'd like to add to yt's post. when reacting ethanol with sulfuric acid, a number of products can be formed. true dehydration results in ethylene, though diethyl ether can be formed. it all depends on temperature.

please see post #13 (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showpost.php?p=271495&postcount=13)

is this a question? and absolutely yes. if we are all at the level of this "criminal mindset" that you speak of, we will all be just like criminals. think of it- if someone takes the life of a friend of yours and you want the criminal dead, this makes you no different from the one that killed your friend. it really is all about intent- i honestly think that the sentences for attempted murder/robbery/arson, etc should be the same as the sentences for successful murder/robbery/arson, etc, but that is a different subject. the point is that if we are allowed to become like criminals through punishment of criminals, we become criminals ourselves in that we are commiting the same offenses as those that they have allegedly committed. also, i would like to remind you that when people commit crimes, they are justified in the eyes of the criminal. to a criminal, a life sentence is hardly better than death if it is better at all, so the slight difference in punishment probably won't do much to deter. and if you're going to be offended by the fact that your tax dollars pay for the feeding and housing of certain criminals, why not be mention any offense you may have at the fact that your tax dollars pay for the defense of such criminals?

stu, just to put this myth to rest, it costs $35k/year to house an inmate and millions upon millions to get the death penalty. say an inmate commits a crime and is jailed at 25. if he serves a life sentence for 50 years, then dies at 75, it costs $1.75million. in some cases it has cost $200k just to print relevant data for prosecution, let alone writing it and all the other relevant things (consider how ridiculously expensive lawyers must be for such cases). also, sorry to be less nice about it than pangloss was, but the idea of revenge being ok is mind-bogglingly ridiculous. as disturbing as it sounds, people who commit crimes have justified them in their own minds at least in the moment that they do commit said crime. when a criminal is convicted of, say, murder, the jury may be in the same position that the criminal once was in. to execute or not to excute: that is the question. and if the victim's family wants him dead, is it really best to sink to the level of the criminal? surely the victim's family should be held to more humane standards than the cold-blooded killer, right?

mustard gas blisters because it readily eliminates chloride, forming a 3 membered sulfonium ring with the sulfur atom and one of the two adjacent ethyl groups. this ring reacts with guanine (so it is a carcinogen), and is in general very electrophilic, as skye said, so it performs many reactions in the body.

well, there's more to it than that. i'd like to see the alternative minimum tax burn and go to hell. as of now, bush has tax cuts for the rich and the alternative minimum tax now screws the middle class, in some cases more than doubling taxes.

actually i remember once hearing of a theory that stated that theoretically, electrons would keep moving if absolute zero were reached

wait, you actually did this in a lab? the F2 would destroy carbon, but it would be hard for it to do anything to Pt. it's what Moissan used when he first isolated F2. if you plan on trying this, just remember that making F2 is a good way to die.

i wouldnt call negative-x particularly dangerous and his posts aren't really suspicious. had he posted a one-liner asking for an rdx synthesis, that would be one thing. but what is he going to do? set off thermite on a subway? i also think that there is nothing wrong with the subject of his posts. what he asks about are interesting subjects- that's how they became popular in the first place. please realize that we may be dealing with someone who has yet to take a chem class. as recent as 3 years ago i knew very little beyond general trends in the periodic table and the fact that potassium nitrate made really cool smoke bombs. oftentimes, superficial interest in this sort of thing results in the "how" and "why" questions that give some substance to the subject. i would advise members of this forum to be more nurturing than dismissive of kfc. however, i do think that kfc should elongate his posts a bit to make it seem as if he has done some sort of research.

well spotted

well, what's weird is that franklin actually had a whole lot of information posted originally but apparently it was removed, and not by the author because he has yet to edit his post

franklin, wasnt your post a lot longer earlier?

walk into an orgo lab and ask them for some methanal. a few people will laugh. others won't know what you're talking about. i also think that for all practical purposes, things like iron (III) oxide are bs. if some kid came up to me and was like "is it true that thermite is the reaction between aluminum and iron three oxide?" i would punch him in the face. personally i think "ferric" and "ferrous" and "stannic," etc roll off the tongue a LOT better.

allow me to respond, jim. it all depends on the potential costs vs potential gains

HBr(aq) would yield the halohydrin. HBr(l) would have to be pretty cold and/or pressurized. better yet, you can use a different solvent.

A match head usually contains an oxidizer as well (this might be KClO3), some filler and some antimony sulphide. The KClO3 decomposes when brought in contact with H2SO4 and the decomposition products may explode or ignite on contact with the reductor in the match head. I think it is quite dangerous to do this experiment. There is a risk of concentrated H2SO4 being sprayed around. it should be noted that H2SO4+MClO3 doesn't necessarily --> explosions. when placed in H2SO4 along with any reducing impurities, the KClO3 will convert to HClO3 and immediately reduce, causing an explosion. however, when pure and protected from light, chloric acid is stable in up to a 40% solution.

npr says iran won't have the bomb for many years at this rate. i hate media sensationalism.

you can. i'd imagine that reacting a permanganate with much more dilute sulfuric acid would yield permanganic acid. the only reason we get the anhydride upon reacting permanganate with conc sulfuric acid is that the H2SO4 dessicates the resulting HMnO4.

it doesnt react with acids- it reacts with reducing agents which are inclusive of some acids, namely hydrohalic acids. it could probably oxidize hypohalous, halous and even halic acids. actually, it should be noted that the "it" i refer to is permanganic acid, formed when Mn2O7 is exposed to water, which it would be exposed to if placed even in a saturated solution of any of the aforementioned acids.

i think that if you were hit in the gluteus maximum with an ion you wouldnt be able to determine its pole

the same logic could be used to justify such ridiculous things as domestic spying

not methylphosphorofluoridic acid and isopropanol

but it really all depends on the reaction conditions. if we have a solid ingot of manganese with minimal surface area and 90% H2O2, the surface of the Mn is oxidized to MnO2, which catalyzes the decomposition of some of the H2O2 before the heat gets so high that the H2O2 decomposes before it can gain access to any sort of catalytic aid