Re: Gordon Moore on explosives, and semiconductors

I agree that this discussion touches on deeper, long-term questions about
science and learning and motivation. (Like many serious questions, it
raises dilemmas, or trade-offs.) I got separate email on the same topic
from an old friend (who became a career physicist). I think it's well
expressed, so without meaning to steal his thunder, I'll presume to quote.

"While we can all applaud a more sensible control over dangerous substances,
it saddens me that the generations following my own may never experience the
thrill of meaningful experimentation that comes not from homemade fireworks,
per se, but from carrying out and observing reactions now made unavailable
by a liability-fearing society. Making a hydrogen balloon, creating
synthetic rubber, watching oozing carbon monoliths grow from sugar and
sulfuric acid, smelling sweet menthol made from aspirin, identifying barium
from its scarlet flame color, extracting pungent chlorine from table salt,
or growing crystals of silver from solution, were all delights during my
junior high and high school years. Let's face it, there has to be some level
of drama in any learning process for it to be compelling. We are robbing the
Sputnik potential from our kids."


The US movie "October sky" also dealt with some of this, implicitly.
(Speaking of Sputnik.) The teenager doing all those test firings in the
movie would surely be arrested for a domestic terrorist today, never mind
the point of what he was doing. I learned about that movie from another old
friend, who followed a related career path to the movie's protagonist, and
had obstacles when young. (E.g., scheme to set up a then-rare low-power
laser to communicate with high-school friend on adjacent hill; mom didn't
know lasers, opposed the idea. I won't have a laser in the house; you'll
burn holes in the wall; etc.)

I remember as a child (aged 8?) being shown around a high school with my
brother. What did the chem teacher display, to rivet our attention? A soft
bottle that he took out gingerly, and described as nitroglycerin. (We were
bug-eyed.) Not the first or last chemistry teacher to understand the drama
content of unstable chemicals.

Though I skipped nitro, I did experiment later with fireworks (especially
colored smokes and flames -- I think my friend quoted earlier meant pale
green, for barium, by the way) and related things, and now appreciate luck
in parents who not only took a long view, but were equipped to (my mother
having studied chemistry, my father with jack-of-all-trades background that
included destroying UXBs during 2nd world war, not that it directly applied,
of course). But after picking up stories of victims of mindless fireworks
hobby, I got the point of reading well ahead, to understand what I was
doing. My parents supported this, commenting on Literature I unearthed from
ancient and modern sources. "Yes, these look like good recipes. Steer
clear of Chlorates, that's what often nails people, and you don't always
need them anyway. Use that concrete blockhouse in the back yard that your
father built as an architectural project. If a fire should start, it'll be
safely contained." (Of course, I didn't follow every advice, but I'm
grateful for its quality. We all owe our parents plenty.)

-- Max


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