• Question: what is the worst thing youcan ever do with water in a lab ??

    Asked by libya4life to Tom on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Tom Crick

      Tom Crick answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      There are a number of things that you shouldn’t do with water in a lab e.g. the alkali metals react violently with water! Also, certain materials when they are on fire are not put out when you use water, you usually have to remove its source of oxygen.

      I’d also be careful about drinking water in a lab, you don’t know what could have contaminated it!

Comments

  • Photo: Derek

    Derek commented on :

    I know this question wasn’t aimed at me, but in my line of work, water can be very dangerous… when it’s in the form of snow or ice. It is slippery, heavy and causes a lot of damage. We once lost a radio-antenna system on Svalbard due to a heavy snow storm.

    These days we test parts of telescopes, but deliberately loading them up with snow. Recently we put 7.5 tonnes of snow on a radio antenna here in Finland to look at the way it collapsed. There are some photographs (and a video) of that here: http://kaira.sgo.fi/search/label/destructive%20test

    Ice on antennas and radio dishes makes them dangerous. We have to be careful climbing these structures when there is ice about, as it is easy to slip and fall many dozens of metres.

    Water can also cause problems if it gets into the electronics.

    Water can also seep