Friday, 20 August 2010

Don't try this at Home...or in a Laboratory

There are many obvious dangers associated with working in a laboratory. For example, in a microbiology lab there is the risk of being infected with a hideous disease, in a histology lab there is the risk of losing fingers while using a microtome, in a physics lab (say the Large Hadron Collider) there is the risk of creating a black hole, in a chemistry lab there is the risk of poisoning from horribly toxic chemicals. All good fun. But a particularly sinister - and hidden - danger, and one that is common to most laboratories, is the presence of a gas cylinder, and the potential for the gas cylinder to "torpedo" if the regulator (pressure gauge) is knocked off. [I'm using the term "gas" to mean a substance in its gaseous phase, eg a gas cylinder containing nitrogen].

The theory is that if the regulator (which covers the opening of the steel cylinder) is suddenly removed from a full gas cylinder - eg if the cylinder falls over and the regulator gets knocked off during the fall - the gas, which had been under pressure, will be expelled, with great force, away from the cylinder. Due to Newton's third law of motion*, the cylinder will also be "expelled" - away from the gas - with the same amount of force, resulting in an out-of-control airbourne steel cylinder, capable of destroying most, if not all, of a laboratory, and the scientists contained within.

As someone who has worked in chemical laboratories, and has been a little sceptical about the "gas cylinder torpedo" theory, I was pleased (and a little freaked) to discover that those crazy funsters from Mythbusters have tested - and confirmed (this is what freaked me) - this theory. [The video I've embedded is a cutdown to show the actual torpedo; I haven't seen the whole episode so I don't know if they tried anything other that complete shearing of the regulator on a full cylinder; for example I don't know if they tried just loosening the regulator and/or using a partially full cylinder.]





*Newton's Third Law of Motion : To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

4 comments:

bro said...

that is SERIOUSLY amazing!!

Nicole_Effulgent13 said...

That's right...don't mess with science or it'll put a hole in your brick wall!

bro said...

was on a plane flying home yesterday and they were showing mythbusters on the tv .. they tested whether putting your hand in water when youre asleep makes you wet the bed .. it does .. MESSY !! :)

Nicole_Effulgent13 said...

Interesting...I wonder what human evolutionary function this serves?