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Environment
Blowing The Lid Off
April 6, 2015
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 93, Issue 14
Reading about the carbide cannon in “The Curiosity Cabinet Collection” brought back a memory of nearly 70 years ago (C&EN, Dec. 8, 2014, page 39). I was 12 years old when a great-uncle showed me how to make a carbide cannon using an empty molasses can. He punched a hole in the lid, put lumps of calcium carbide in the can, and spit on them. With the lid back on, he held a long, lit match by the hole, and the lid blew off.
I was impressed, and so I studied the chemical reactions. I made some more “cannons” and with neighborhood kids had contests to see who could blow their lid the farthest. It was several more years before I was a professor of chemistry.
John L. Meisenheimer Sr.
Orlando
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