November 12, 2024 • 43 mins
A surprising number of Nobel Prize winners credit their childhood chemistry set for sparking their interest in science. But most kids just used them to make stuff explode. Compared to the originals, today’s versions are super safe, pale shadows.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
Jerry's here too, floating around somewhere out there. And that
makes the stuff you should know.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You thought of this one, and Dave helped us out
with the research on chemistry sets. I will go ahead
and to say that I never had a chemistry set,
but you know darn well that somebody in my family did,
was it Scott? Oh, of course he did. He was
voted most likely to have a chemistry set in preschool.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
That's a Did he do anything magical with it?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I mean, I just remember him having it in it,
being around the house, and you know, he's just always
had a more scientifically minded brain than me and has
always been smarter than me from the drop. So he
was into chemistry sets, and I was into you know,
baseball cards.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I was into baseball cards too. I was gonna say,
don't feel bad because I didn't have a chemistry set either,
but I did have like an electrical set, like the
electrical version of a chemistry So, yeah, you do all
sorts of stuff, Yeah, yeah, And I distinctly remember just
hitting it with a hammer because I had no idea
what was going on with that thing.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You can't build a circuit.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
No, you could put a gun to my head and
be like, build a circuit, and I'd just start hitting
it with a hammer. I think you know.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Who got good at that is a friend of the
show and Palavars in real.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Life, David Reese. Oh yeah, he.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Got into circuitry and like building and refurbishing old like
musical electronics and pedals and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
What an interesting dude. If you don't know who Dave
Reese is, yeah, go look up. What's the name of
this book about artisanal pencil sharpened?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I think it's how to sharpen pencils. See outside A
great TV show that I'm not sure if you can
find it, but you can try.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Called Going Deep with day Man.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
But you know, it's like how to shake someone's hand.
Stuff like that seems very intuitive, but not through David's
odd point of view.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
He also was on Dick Town with Hodgmen.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Right, that's right, and he can build the heck out
of a circuit. I bet you had a chemistry set.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Too, very nice. I know that Dave Russ, who helps
us with this, said that he had one of those
electronic sets too. Dave's pretty sharp, so I'm presuming he
didn't hit it with the hammer.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But this is a pretty fun when we're going to
talk about the history of chemistry sets, which, believe it
or not, go back to the eighteenth century when they
were called chemical chests. But this was pre let's make
this a toy for kids. It was like, Hey, if
you're a university student or a professional or amateur young chemist,
(02:49):
button chemist.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Do you like to wear capes?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, exactly, you like a smock, get a chemistry set, right.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So the first one, actually they traced it back to
I named You're gonna make me say his name? Huh.
Watch this, yeah, Johann Friedrich August Goudding.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Nay, not bad, may mean not bad.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That was dead on the nose.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I think it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I think I can hear our German listeners giving me
a standing ovation right now.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Ah vundebar.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
He came up with a chemistry chest in I think
seventeen eighty nine, if I didn't say that already, and
it was called garay for this a portable chest of
chemistry or a complete collection of chemical tests for the
use of chemists, physicians, mineralogists, metallurgists, scientific artists, manufacturers, farmers
and cultivators of natural philosophy and party boys.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And again this thing wasn't a toy.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It had thirty five chemicals, had a very robust like balance,
you know, like a balance for weighing things, had a
mortar and pestle.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Of course, it had a book.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And this is kind of as you'll see a key
with all chemistry sets is a come with a book
of experiments. Otherwise you're just going to be dangerous. You
might be anyway, But this one had about one.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Hundred and fifty experiments.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And interestingly it had this platinum foil included that they
would not include now because this stuff was very valuable.
I believe in today dollars would be worth about a
thousand bucks.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Wow, if the price is right, that's right. The reason
they include platinum foil is platinum is a really valuable
and useful catalyst and a lot of chemical reactions. It
wasn't just to show.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Off, no, of course not so.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
There were other early chemistry sets too. Like you said
they were for grown ups, they were for chemistry professionals,
and people used to train to be chemistry professionals and
go to college for it. Still do. But there was
a guy at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school all
the way back in seventeen ninety seven named James Woodhouse,
and he was a professor of chemistry, and he also
(04:58):
had a nice little sideline selling chemistry chests to his
students and being like, you really won't get an A
or even maybe past this class if you don't buy
my chemistry set.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, not bad.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's like when the professor wrote the book that you're
exact textbook. One little just sort of fun fact that
Dave threw in here was this was pre test tube.
They didn't have test tubes yet. So in both of
these early eighteenth century chemistry chests they said to use wineglasses.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Very nice, very swanky.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So there was also even back then, well maybe not
back in the seventeen hundreds, but certainly very quickly after that. No,
I'm going to go ahead and say the seventeen hundreds
in everybody was like this is not just like interesting
and you can do stuff with it. This can be
kind of fun too, Like it's fun to take two
(05:53):
chemicals and suddenly make these two clear things turn blue.
Who doesn't love that kind of thing. And so there
was always a certain element of magic to chemistry, and
in particular chemistry sets, and eventually people started like selling
them as that, not just as that, but there was
a transition from just for chemical professionals chemists, to for
(06:20):
chemists but also for chemists who'd like to have a
good time.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I mean there were and we talked about this before,
like scientific demonstrations in the you know, nineteenth century could
be everything from just like straight up science to a
little little magic, a little showmanship, involved a little flare.
People like Faraday were doing stuff like this in public.
There was a chemist named Frederick Acam I guess Accum
(06:47):
who would do these big public demonstrations that were, you know,
kind of part magic show, part science, and you could
even buy one of his sets. He had a chemistry set.
I don't think they were called chess at this point,
called alums still called the chests. Oh yeah, there it
is in the title Acom's Chest of Chemical Amusement again,
(07:09):
which you know lends itself to amusement. I think that
was the booklet was called Chemical amusement colon a series
of curious and instructive experiments in chemistry which are easily
performed and unattended by danger.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That's important right there. Yeah, because one of the things
that kind of got all over chemistry sets over the
years was safety. And this was even like back in
the early nineteenth century that they were like, these can
be dangerous. So yeah, that was a big, a big
thing that he included that in the title of the
booklet that came with it.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, for sure, and all of this, you know, talk
of sort of magic and fun is a is a
long way to get to the fact that by the
sort of early ish eighteen hundreds and like eighteen thirty five,
they started saying, hey, these like we should sell these
to kids.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
These are fun.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You know who's trustworthy kids?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
There was one called the Eedies Youth Laboratory from eighteen
thirty five. A few years later was Statham's Students Chemical Laboratory,
and then by eighteen fifty six they had one called
Pike's Youth Chemical Cabinet.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Wow, chemical cabinet sounds amazing, it does. And then by
the time the twentieth century rolled around, so they were
making these things here or there for centuries by now
finally they were like, Okay, our market is young people
who are enthusiastic about chemistry, but also again wear capes
(08:36):
because they like magic. And one of the good examples
that Dave turned up about this was came out in
nineteen hundred. It was Kingsley's Primus Chemical Magic and Practical
Chemistry Cabinet, and it had everything you needed to carry
out like these serious chemistry experiments. And it came with
(08:57):
a booklet too that had plenty of instructions, but it
also had a lot of stuff to set things on
fire and instructions on how to essentially make fireworks and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, I would love to see a Venn diagram of
gen X kids who had chemistry sets.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, who could.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Pull a rabbit out of a hat or a card
out of somebody's ear and like knew how to do
the Rubik's cube and draw a flip book.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's the trifecta.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, that was my brother in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sure it's like oh Ruber's cube, Sure you.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Want to see how to solve it.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But he wouldn't even say watch this. He'd be like, here,
let me help you.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I also, just as a little side note, I'm like,
why did they call that a primus chemistry cabinet? So
it turns out primus, one of the definitions of it
is a small stove that burns paraffin, so presumably that
was included in the kid as like a Bunsen burner.
And it went a little deeper. I was like, okay,
why is the band Imus called Primus? And it turns
(10:02):
out they were originally called the Primates. There was another
band called the Primates that said we will sue the
pants off of you if you call yourself the Primates.
So less Claypool and friends looked up primate definitions and
words and found out that Primus is the root word
for Primates, so they went with Primus instead.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Look at that one of my most hated bands of
all time. Really yeah, I hate Primus, And you know
what I'm gonna hear from Primis fans.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You are not yuck and you'r yum.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I love for you to love what you love, but
I've got to be able to hate Primis as well.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Sure they can't yung. You're yuck. Yeah, like everybody, It's
not like you're telling them not to listen, or that
they suck for listening.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
No, I'm sure they're great for certain years. It's just
that's not mine.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They have some good songs, though Chuck Jerry was a
race car driver. You honestly don't like that song, no, okay,
all right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
They also sound the same to me. They all sound
like his bass just all sounds.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Like that was really good impression actually, and.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
All the singing and just Downrue too.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, you don't like Primis.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I don't like it. Checks out. One of my very
best friends loves Primus, and so you know we cannot we.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Can all co exist, You're like, so I can say that, Yeah, exactly.
A lot of my friends are Primis fans. All right,
let's take a break and we'll enter the twenty twenties,
twentieth century right after this.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Sure loss a much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Okay, So I think, like I said, in the early
twenty century, they were like, yep, young boys who are
interested in chemistry, And let's go back and emphasize this boys.
That's who we're going to market these things too. Yeah,
this is who chemistry sets belonged to. Like little Boy
scientists who have an interest in chemistry, and the thing
(12:18):
that went basically throughout the twentieth century, at least up
until like the sixties. If you bought a chemistry set
for your kid, like that was the first step toward
being a professional chemist as they grew up.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, and you were guaranteed to have a little boy
on the front box.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That's just the way it was back then.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And we'll get to more of that sort of weird
sexism and science that still continues today in a little bit.
But one of the big players, there were a couple
of big ones. The first one was the Kim Craft Company.
Kimkraft Chemistry Set in nineteen sixteen was the first really
sort of popular toy chemistry set produced by the Porter
Chemical Company out of Merryland, and it was about a
(13:01):
buck fifty to maybe ten bucks if you were pretty
well healed, because that's it's about forty to three hundred
bucks today, so some pretty decent money you'd have to
throw down on the high end chemistry set back then.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, these had test tubes.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
By this point, you had an alcohol lamp, of course,
you had your weights and balances, and you had lots
of chemicals.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, this is like a serious chemistry set. It had
like all this stuff you needed, and it was substantial
in form right. The manual also was like we're going
to do some serious stuff. One of the first experiments
from this manual came from nineteen nineteen. That edition is
(13:43):
called Combination of Elements, and basically, you put powdered zinc
and sulfur on a metal spoon and start heating it.
Be sure to quote keep your face at a little distance.
And then as the mass becomes hot, the sulfur takes
fire and burns, and then the mixture starts to swell
to a bulky porous mass while on fire, and then
(14:04):
suddenly there's a flash and sulfur and zinc unite, chemically
forming zinc sulfide, and hopefully you have your eyebrows left afterwards.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, it's funny, Like the literal quote was keeping your
face at a little distance, and the first three times
I read that, I read it as keeping your little
face at a distance.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh, I wish they'd said that that's adorable.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It was.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It should have been keep your little face at a
great distance, because that was dangerous. There was also something
called fire ink, which is exactly what you think is
you would combine, or you may not know what you combined,
but you know what the result probably is. You combine
potassium nitrate and water in a test tube and then
write on a piece of paper and light that on fire,
(14:44):
and you know what you have spelled out is now
on fire.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, so the potassium nitrate water is the ink, the
fire ink, as it were, which sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Imagine being like, hello, how are you suddenly on fire
on a piece of paper. Your friend's kind of think
you're pretty I literally wrote neat with an exclamation point
after that one.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, but you would also probably be more likely to
write butthole or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Then, hey, how are you?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That's true? You know that's totally true. Also, I want
to take back the word literally. I'm really trying hard
to abandon that. Even when it's properly used. It's just
so so wrong these days.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Well, good for you, I think, literally, good for you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So what else?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, that was another experiment. This is so fun. It's
called making a fuse.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
That basically all you need to know is like, you know,
you can you can probably make things that'll blow up.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So you're gonna need a fuse.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, and that went really well with the manufacture of
colored fire, which was homemade fireworks. It was genuinely and
sincerely a flash in a pan because you would put
these different metals in and make for you make gunpowder.
The little kid would make gunpowder and then depending on
the chemical or metal that they added, it would burn
(16:03):
a different color in a pan as a flash. Genuinely.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, if you found another some cool research on like
just how dangerous some of these chemicals.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Were, right, Oh yeah, let's talk about those.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah. What else? What else was in there?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
In some of these sets that came out in the
twentieth century, there was iodine solution, which sounds kind of innocuous,
but they figured out over time that you could use
that to make meth with Okay, you could also if
you ate two grams of it or more, you would
probably die. I think ammonium nitrate was in that, which
is frequently used to make bombs.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
What else, Well, one thing you could do that was
fun is you could make smoke bombs right with that
potassium nitrate, which is I don't know if you mentioned
it's also in gunpowder. True, So a lot of these
experiments were like watch it flame, spark, or boom in
a small way.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Another one used to show up with sodium cyanide, which
is more commonly referred to as cyanide, and you would
bind two metals like make essentially dissolved gold into water,
metals into water. It's pretty neat, that's what it's used for.
But it's also a rapidly acting toxin that can kill
you dead pretty easily. And this was one of those
(17:20):
chemicals in the glass vials that arrived in the chemistry
sets for kids back then.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, and speaking of glass, or even some chemistry sets
that had the material and instruction for blowing glass, which
is no doubt a super cool, awesome thing to learn,
but it's you know, it's not something it should be
drying in their bedroom.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
No, I mean, it has to get really hot to
melt glass enough to blow it. One of my favorites
is calcium hypochlorite, which is one of the main ingredients
for chlorine gas, which was I think the first chemical
weapon to ever be banned by the world. So you
could make a chemical weapon in your bedroom if you
(18:02):
knew what you were doing.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And as we're saying, all this, we should point out
that these early kits and sets did not offer things
like eye protection, like not even a little pair of
like fun goggles, you know, like, hey kid, these are
cute and fun. You look like a real scientist if
you wear these, like just didn't come with them. And
the whole thing with you know that we tied it
into earlier with magic. A lot of them have like
(18:27):
hares or like you know, your science experiments you can do.
But also here's some just really fun, like sort of
literal magic tricks you can do.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right. There was one that's called the magic handkerchief. And
you take a handkerchief and you put I think blue
cobalt on it, and as you dry it out, I
think it turns white. You're no blue, and you can
change it to white magically by it instructs you to
ball it up and rub it in your hands for
a few minutes. Any magic trick that takes a few
(18:56):
minutes of repetitive motion is not a magic trick worth doing.
But it's what was great is it said, now here's
where you have some fun, and then it went on
to the next instruction. So these these were really mid
century written instruction booklets. That really captured the time. If
you think.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
About it, Shall we take a break?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Oh my, you bet?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
That was very insure, but we're doing it anyway. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
We loss so much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
All right, So you're getting these chemistry sets. Another big
part of the whole sort of branding thing for these
companies making these and this was just sort of big
back in those days in the nineteen fifties was.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Like clubs, like kids clubs.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So if you got a chemistry set, it was a
pretty good chance it would come with like a membership
in like a science club, and there could be local
chapters that you get together with your friends and things
you could mail in for Probably a magazine is involved,
like a quarterly magazine. Certainly in the case of kim
Kraft they had the Science Club and the Kimcraft Chemists.
(20:23):
Was there was there rag that they sent out, which
was usually just ads for more stuff to buy, but
there are they were like kind of fun little stories
like where a kid would like save the day through
some cool chemistry experiment. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
They seem very Mark Trail esque, Yeah, for sure. So
in addition to Gilbert was essentially Kimcraft's rival, and Gilbert
was the company of Alfred Carlton Gilbert, who had invented
the original Erector Set thirteen that originally was debuted as
(20:59):
like an engineer's chemistry set. That's what directors were sold
as is. But so Gilbert was like, well, let's get
into chemistry too, So they came up with a Gilbert
Chemistry outfit for boys. So the name of the product
literally specifies that it's just for boys.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, And it had a little astisk and at the
very bottom it said must have penis.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
On the label too, Like the picture on the box
had a little boy with his shirt sleeves rolled up,
wearing a tie doing his chemistry stuff, like an eight
year old wearing a tie.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, this is nineteen twenty. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
So they found an instruction manual, not from the nineteen
twenty edition but from nineteen thirty six, and this one
finally did have a warning here and we should read
this because this is pretty fun. Gilbert Chemistry sets are
not intended for children who cannot read and understand the
accompanying instruction books. The sets do not contain dangerous poisons,
and the chemicals mentioned in this manual are not embraced
(22:01):
under the term poisons. They're perfectly safe to use if
handled carefully and intelligently. They're not intended to be taken
by mouth or swallowed, and no intelligent person would be
expected to use them for such purposes. So they're shaming.
At the same time. It is necessary, however, to emphasize
the fact that carelessness on the part of the experimenter
(22:22):
can always lead to trouble.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, and if you ever signed up for Disney Plus,
you can't sue us if you blow up and burn
your house.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Down, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And then they have a few tips at the end,
like you know, never point the open end of a
test tube that you're heating at anybody. Never just put
your nose at the end of one while heating to
smell it, or put your face with your little face
near it.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yep, exactly. So at least Gilbert's this is the thirties,
mid thirties where Gilbert's like, okay, we need to let
kids know, like you need to be responsible with this.
And that was actually I read one of the expectations
of chemistry sets in the middle of the twentieth century
that it went to a home populated by a boy
(23:03):
who had parents that taught that kid responsible stuff, how
to be responsible, how to handle chemicals correctly, how to
be safe, how to be smart. That that was kind
of part and parcel with buying a chemistry set. You
a parent, didn't just hand it to your kid and say, like,
leave me alone for a while, like you were supposed
to be involved, at least initially.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, at least looking over his shoulder with your least
pipe in your.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Mouth and knocking on the door and being like still
alive in there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Right, mom, want you to always knock.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So we talked a little bit about the sort of
sexism involved with all this stuff. Is only marketed to boys.
Pictures of boys literally on the package for boys. In
some cases that was just the deal, was like boys
were scientists. Girls were not considered for science. That is
still a problem. There are so many initiatives these days
(23:58):
to get young girls into at a young age, very successfully,
you know, in a lot of cases, but it's still
a challenge to be a woman in the world of science.
I think we've heard from plenty of listeners who have
verified that. But in the nineteen twenties they did the
Porter Chypical Chemical Company did say, hey, we're some of
(24:19):
these things to boys. What about the girls, And they
were like, oh, how about Sashet craft the girl's sachet outfit,
which was chemistry in that it was a way to
mix perfumes.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, making flowery smells from aromatic powders.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah. It was basically a perfum set.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Right exactly. And they're still in use today. In Who
Do Love Potions? And I was looking at some of these,
and the names of the ones that I could find
were confusion, Destroy Everything is one of the potions. Follow
me gal was another one.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
No, I'll have that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So you want to steer clear of people using who
Do Love Potions on you because there's no telling what
they'll make you do is essentially the thinking behind it.
But they're made from sashe powders as well, That's why
I say that. I don't know if that was clear.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Eventually, in the nineteen sixties, Gilbert finally was like, all right,
let's make a four girls chemistry set. But even then,
in the books and stuff, it was like, so you
too can become a lab technician. A lab technician, Yeah,
like not, you know, they weren't encouraging you to reach
for the stars and become a scientist.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, it was like, so you could learn what you're
doing and go assist boy chemists, the real.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Kind, right, exactly, it's so nuts boo.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So this was in the sixties. You said that at
least chemistry sets for girls came out, even if they
were still derogatory. That was the golden era of chemistry sets,
the fifties to the sixties. Usually about the early to
mid sixties, they say.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
We love a golden age.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, and this was definitely it. And I've seen in
multiple places that the reason why this was the golden
age of chemistry sets was because this was a time
when America in particular was feeling pretty good about science.
Not only had America been the first to come up
with the bomb, we were also making things like nylon.
(26:19):
We were making more durable goods out of plastics, like
science was improving people's lives, and at the heart of
this was chemistry. So there was a real desire to
keep the party going by creating the next generation of chemists,
by really going all in onto chemistry sets, and so
(26:39):
they started selling even better than they ever had before.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, the two slogans changed in the fifties and sixties.
For Kim Kraft, they changed it to porter Science prepares
young America for world leadership, and Gilbert responded in kind
with today's adventures in science will create tomorrow's America. And
it was this idea. I think even a c. Gilbert
the Founder like included a note that said hello boys,
(27:05):
that said, Hello boys, the need for chemistry is greater
now than any point in our country's history. This Gilbert
Chemistry set may well be the means of launching you
on a useful and well paying career. So it was like, Hey,
this is a toy, but if you're interested in science,
just wait, because there's a career out there waiting for you.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, if you like making things catch on fire, wait
until they pay you money to make things catch on fire.
You're gonna really like it. And so things just kind
of started to get like anything they could throw at
the wall. Because they were selling so many of these,
they were willing to try a lot more than just
the standard chemistry set. And one of the ones that
came out, chuck In I think nineteen fifty is widely considered,
(27:47):
at least by some the world's most dangerous toy.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It was it bag of glass.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It was even worse than that, although I don't know
at the end of the day, I think bag of
glass might be worse.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
That, of of course, was from the great Saturday Night
Live from the seventies, think dan Ackroyd. But we did,
or maybe you did, back in the day when we
were tasked with doing what are they called, what do
we call them image galleries? And you did something on
dangerous toys, and I think I remember like this was
in there, because I remember we talked about it, either
(28:22):
there or in a maybe a podcast or one of
the videos we used to do about the Atomic energy lab.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah, it had real uranium in it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
It did not only did it have four vials of
actual uranium or super radioactive uranium or well, I should
say actual radioactive uranium ore. There are also three different
sources of alpha, beta and gamma particle radiation too, So
this box was like quite radioactive. It was a legit,
(28:52):
real deal science box. It had a Geiger counter in it,
thank god. It had something called the spintherroscope. You could
look through it's almost like a seeing eyeglass. Now what
are they called like that, like a captain would like
pull out the not a telescope.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Like a sextant.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
No, it's like the telescope that's small and pocket sized
that telescopes into a smaller version of itself.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I mean think it's called telescope in it whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So it's like that, but you can actually watch radioactive
isotopes decaying under this thing. There was also a cloud
chamber in there, which is really impressive that they had
cloud chambers.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, is this the thing you sent? Yes? I did
not get a chance to look over this, so feel free.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Okay. So a cloud chamber is a specific kind of
like flask or vial that's set up to hold alcohol
vapor that in some way shape or form I guess
through magic. You can see the trails of radioactive particles
moving through the alcohol vapor, very similar to like a
(30:06):
contrail from an airplane, if you believe that those are
actually contrails. Yeah, and the particles, the lower, lesser active
radioactive particles would kind of zigzag and make little cute lines,
but that's because they were actually being slowed down by
the alcohol vapor.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
There.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Really strong ones would make a nice bold straight line
through there, and you could just see all these little
trails of radioactive particles show up in your own personal
cloud chamber that came in this play set. I know,
it was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well, the ones that came with uranium, they had you know, booklets.
One was called Prospecting for Uranium that taught you how
to mine a radioactive or so you're thinking, like all right,
like how literally how dangerous was this? There have been
modern calculations about, you know, what was contained in these boxes,
(30:59):
and suppose that the amount of radiation from the uranium
in one of these sets equaled about a day of
UV exposure from the sun. So it's not the most
dangerous thing in the world, but it is pretty funny
that it came with like actual uranium, right.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I couldn't find an answer though, like over what period
of time was it day's worth of UV exposure? Like
an hour if you spent the day with this thing,
Like I couldn't quite nail it down. But I'm from
the context that everybody describes it, and it sounds fairly harmless.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, and it's exposure, but like what if it's on
your skin or gets in your body somehow, your your.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Teeth, it can't be good.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So I saw that they only sold about five thousand
of them, and that it wasn't There's a great Atlas
Obscure video on this where they talked to a curator
at a science museum who opens one of these and
just talks about it, and she said that they were
discontinued after two years, not because of safety concerns, but
because they didn't sell very many. Because it was about
(31:57):
five hundred or something dollars in today's money for these things,
so most parents weren't like, sure, I'll buy you this,
you know, atomic lab for five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah, And here's the thing, it was just kind of fun.
We won't read through all these quotes, but a lot
of you know, legit Nobel winning chemistry chemists over the
years got their start in chemistry sets. I imagine a
lot of real deal scientists and chemists had these things
when they were kids. And we'll read one from Oliver Sacks,
(32:28):
the neurologist and author, said, I do not think there
can be any adequate substitute for having a chemistry set
or a little chemistry lab and doing experiments oneself, thinking
them out, taking responsibility for them, and occasionally facing risks too.
So Oliver Sacks talking about risk was one of the
big sort of cells of chemistry sets for kids, like
(32:49):
a little bit of danger involved. You know, they were
fun and all, but I think it was that little
bit of like, you know, you are making fire, you
are making things go boom or smoke. That was one
of the things that appealed to kids and probably still does, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
For sure. And the problem is is that over time,
so like kids who were like, I'm really into this
and I need to learn to be a responsible chemists
because I want to grow up to be a chemist.
Over like, there were also kids that got these that
were not that interested in being a chemist. They just
wanted to blow things up. And then I think also
there were kids who were responsible but just had accidents,
(33:26):
and so there were reports of people burning down their
family house with these chemistry sets are injuring themselves. And
that kind of coincided with a couple of things. One
this increasing interest in protecting kids from toys, and then
two also a greater emphasis on things like environmental pollutants
(33:50):
and toxins, and that whole like love of chemistry that
really carried everybody in the fifties and early sixties was
starting to be questioned and like, exactly where these chemicals
doing to us? So you put those two things combined,
and chemistry sets started.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
To take a hit, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
In sixty six, Congress passed the Child Protection Act, which
you know, all of a sudden you could ban a
toy that had something dangerous or hazardous in there. A
couple of years later, the US Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare they estimated that toys, just all toys, caused
about seven hundred thousand injuries a year. So more regulations
(34:28):
were passed in the late sixties and early seventies seventies
for like you said, just protecting kids from dangers and
toys and what these toys were made of, in the
case of chemistry sets, like the chemicals that were in there.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah. So, like this increasing concern among parents and what
are in these chemistry sets led to decline in sales,
and in fact, Porter Chemical and Gilbert the two rivals
who've made Chemcraft and Gilbert Chemistry sets, were bought by
a toy maker named Gabriel Toys. You might recognize that
name from Othello Trouble. The pottery craft activity, a little
(35:06):
set where you could make your own pottery You remember
that it was this little pottery wheel.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
And probably remember the box.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You can you definitely would, but you could recreate that
scene from Ghost.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
But for cheap Yeah, yeah, as a teenager too.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Anyway, Gabriel they bought those two in nineteen sixty seven,
and by the eighties they were like, no chemistry set.
You just couldn't sell them. Some companies went on like, no,
we're going to keep the flame going, but they really
really watered them down starting in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, for sure, and that I mean, I guess my
brother would have had one probably from the seventies, so
it may have still been a little bit legit. But yeah,
in the eighties they started literally watering them down, watering
down the chemicals. Things you know, became plastic, like you
didn't get glass test tubes and metal scales and stuff
(35:58):
like that anymore. Like you know, the old kids were
just sort of smaller condensed versions of like the real deal,
and that all changed. They just became cheaper, kind of
like everything else. I think in two thousand and one
there was a recall of a set called Professor Wacko's
Exothermic Exuberance that had glycerine and potassium.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
What is that work?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Manging it?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, okay, great, and that could cause things to catch
on fire and spontaneously combust. These these this particular kid
had containers with removable lids, but they weren't labeled, so
kids were mislabeling things or just getting them confused basically
because there were no labels. And there were two separate
house fire incidents. So that one was recalled and that
(36:46):
was I mean that was in the early two thousands.
It was surprising those were still around.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I think those people try to throw back to
like the real deal and it just didn't quite work.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
There was another one that's YESI Fingerprinting Examination Kit, which
sounds extremely innocuous, but it was recalled in two thousand
and seven because they found out that the fingerprint powder
that you used to dust for prints with had asbestos
in it. It was up to five percent asbestos, which
is obviously I think a mesothelioma causing carcinogen. Yeah, so
(37:20):
that was like no, and parents were like, what are
you guys doing. Stop selling our kids, Like, we're clearly
into products safety, Stop selling our kids this stuff. So
a toymaker named oh, I don't know who made it,
but they came out with a set called Chemistry sixty
and they were like, watch this. This is sixty fun
(37:40):
activities with no chemicals.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
In other words, boring this. This is the irony here.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Despite that it had no chemicals, it had two kinds
of safety goggles, the goggles and those little clear safety
glasses made out of whatever they're made out of, the
chat non chat or something.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And to fold it up, nanny who came out of
the box to hover while all of these experiments are
going on, and you could get the items that you needed,
Like you did need some chemicals, but these are like
kitchen level chemicals like vinegar, baking, soda, that kind of stuff.
And I thought that was kind of reminiscent. Remember, Dave
came up with a bunch of quotes of Nobel scientists
(38:21):
who credit chemistry sets for like increasing their or starting
their interest in science. There was one other scientist named
Kerrie Mullis who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in
ninety three, who said that their objective with their chemistry
set was to figure out what things I might put
together to cause an explosion, and that they discovered whatever
chemicals might be missing, they could buy them at the
(38:44):
local drug store or hardware store, and so like that's
this is like the antithesis of that, Rather than being
like I need more explosive stuff or I need this
other thing to make this explosion happen. I'm going to
go down to the drug store hardware store.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
This was.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I'm going to go to the kitchen and make a
baking soda and vinegar volcano in this chemistry set that
my parents bought me, and then I'm going to go
to sleep and maybe hopefully never wake up.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Dave did a little research, though, and found that there
are some pretty good ones today that you can still get.
There are some companies that are, you know, trying to
make a safe version of a real deal chemistry set
these days. This one called I don't know, it's TIMS
or Themes in this case, and Cosmos with a K.
It's called the kim C three thousand, two hundred and
(39:34):
eighty bucks plus money for chemicals, So it better be
good for that kind of dough.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. It got best overall Chemistry set by the Wall
Street Journal in two thousand and six. I didn't know
the Wall Street Journal rated such things.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
But it makes steen years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It does make sense that they would rate it though,
because these some of the legit chemistry sets sold today. Therefore,
like homeschoolers like, who need this kind of stuff? And
in fact, if you want to plunk down six hundred
and forty five simoleans, you can get a chemistry set
that covers an entire year of eleventh grade chemistry. Oh wow,
(40:10):
pretty neat. I also saw one other reason that chemistry
sets kind of got watered down over the years are
meth labs. People were finding like they could actually buy
these things and use them to make meth. Right, So
there was another there was another prong to like be like,
we need to really stop making these legit chemistry sets. Yeah,
got anything else?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
You know, support support science for your for your kids,
little little girls, little boys, get them, get them a
chemistry set.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Very nice, That's what I say.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
That's right. Since Chuck gave us a nice PSA, it's
time of course for a listener, mate.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I'm going to call this all caught up. Hey, everybody
got hooked on your show. In twenty nineteen, after a
few weeks of listening, I decided I had to listen
to all of it, and after five years, I finally
have completed that task. Just finished listening to the Judas
Priest suicide trial during a morning trail run, and now
I feel like I have a little void in my life.
You guys having to wait patiently throughout the week for
(41:10):
new content. I often listen for hours on end during
trail runs training for ultra marathons. By the way, Josh
has many times called them ultrathons, which never fails to
give me a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Ultrathon is that another thing?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I think they're called ultra marathons. Ultrathon is like a
bad guy on in a character Yeah, and some Japanese anime.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah. I like ultrathon.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Your voices and content, guys, always give me keep me
in a positive mood, even when I'm at the point
of exhaustion. You've been with me and my wife through
some big life events, our marriage, multiple cross country moves,
new jobs.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
And now a new baby in a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
And by the time this comes out, that baby will
be around, I would imagine, because we're ahead by a
few weeks at this point.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
So keep up the great work, guys.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
I can continue to share this and enjoy it with
my family as it grows by one. Maybe a long shot,
but I'd love to see a live show up here
in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That you get a couple one
hundred people in a room here, that's for Matt. Well, Matt,
we got a couple of hundred people in a room
in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, we can't get worse than that, right.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, I'd rather go to Halifax than have a hometown
show be under sold.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, you got any barns in Halifax, Matt. That we
can do is.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Showing that Bet Matt has a barn.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Well. Congratulations in advance retroactively to you and your family
for your baby's birth. And if you want to get
in touch with us like Matt did and tell us
how much we've kept you going on your ultrathons, you
can do so by sending us an email to Stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
Jerry's here too, floating around somewhere out there. And that
makes the stuff you should know.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You thought of this one, and Dave helped us out
with the research on chemistry sets. I will go ahead
and to say that I never had a chemistry set,
but you know darn well that somebody in my family did,
was it Scott? Oh, of course he did. He was
voted most likely to have a chemistry set in preschool.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
That's a Did he do anything magical with it?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I mean, I just remember him having it in it,
being around the house, and you know, he's just always
had a more scientifically minded brain than me and has
always been smarter than me from the drop. So he
was into chemistry sets, and I was into you know,
baseball cards.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I was into baseball cards too. I was gonna say,
don't feel bad because I didn't have a chemistry set either,
but I did have like an electrical set, like the
electrical version of a chemistry So, yeah, you do all
sorts of stuff, Yeah, yeah, And I distinctly remember just
hitting it with a hammer because I had no idea
what was going on with that thing.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You can't build a circuit.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
No, you could put a gun to my head and
be like, build a circuit, and I'd just start hitting
it with a hammer. I think you know.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Who got good at that is a friend of the
show and Palavars in real.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Life, David Reese. Oh yeah, he.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Got into circuitry and like building and refurbishing old like
musical electronics and pedals and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
What an interesting dude. If you don't know who Dave
Reese is, yeah, go look up. What's the name of
this book about artisanal pencil sharpened?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I think it's how to sharpen pencils. See outside A
great TV show that I'm not sure if you can
find it, but you can try.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Called Going Deep with day Man.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
But you know, it's like how to shake someone's hand.
Stuff like that seems very intuitive, but not through David's
odd point of view.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
He also was on Dick Town with Hodgmen.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Right, that's right, and he can build the heck out
of a circuit. I bet you had a chemistry set.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Too, very nice. I know that Dave Russ, who helps
us with this, said that he had one of those
electronic sets too. Dave's pretty sharp, so I'm presuming he
didn't hit it with the hammer.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But this is a pretty fun when we're going to
talk about the history of chemistry sets, which, believe it
or not, go back to the eighteenth century when they
were called chemical chests. But this was pre let's make
this a toy for kids. It was like, Hey, if
you're a university student or a professional or amateur young chemist,
(02:49):
button chemist.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Do you like to wear capes?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, exactly, you like a smock, get a chemistry set, right.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So the first one, actually they traced it back to
I named You're gonna make me say his name? Huh.
Watch this, yeah, Johann Friedrich August Goudding.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Nay, not bad, may mean not bad.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That was dead on the nose.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I think it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I think I can hear our German listeners giving me
a standing ovation right now.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Ah vundebar.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
He came up with a chemistry chest in I think
seventeen eighty nine, if I didn't say that already, and
it was called garay for this a portable chest of
chemistry or a complete collection of chemical tests for the
use of chemists, physicians, mineralogists, metallurgists, scientific artists, manufacturers, farmers
and cultivators of natural philosophy and party boys.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And again this thing wasn't a toy.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
It had thirty five chemicals, had a very robust like balance,
you know, like a balance for weighing things, had a
mortar and pestle.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Of course, it had a book.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And this is kind of as you'll see a key
with all chemistry sets is a come with a book
of experiments. Otherwise you're just going to be dangerous. You
might be anyway, But this one had about one.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Hundred and fifty experiments.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And interestingly it had this platinum foil included that they
would not include now because this stuff was very valuable.
I believe in today dollars would be worth about a
thousand bucks.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Wow, if the price is right, that's right. The reason
they include platinum foil is platinum is a really valuable
and useful catalyst and a lot of chemical reactions. It
wasn't just to show.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Off, no, of course not so.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
There were other early chemistry sets too. Like you said
they were for grown ups, they were for chemistry professionals,
and people used to train to be chemistry professionals and
go to college for it. Still do. But there was
a guy at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school all
the way back in seventeen ninety seven named James Woodhouse,
and he was a professor of chemistry, and he also
(04:58):
had a nice little sideline selling chemistry chests to his
students and being like, you really won't get an A
or even maybe past this class if you don't buy
my chemistry set.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, not bad.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's like when the professor wrote the book that you're
exact textbook. One little just sort of fun fact that
Dave threw in here was this was pre test tube.
They didn't have test tubes yet. So in both of
these early eighteenth century chemistry chests they said to use wineglasses.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Very nice, very swanky.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So there was also even back then, well maybe not
back in the seventeen hundreds, but certainly very quickly after that. No,
I'm going to go ahead and say the seventeen hundreds
in everybody was like this is not just like interesting
and you can do stuff with it. This can be
kind of fun too, Like it's fun to take two
(05:53):
chemicals and suddenly make these two clear things turn blue.
Who doesn't love that kind of thing. And so there
was always a certain element of magic to chemistry, and
in particular chemistry sets, and eventually people started like selling
them as that, not just as that, but there was
a transition from just for chemical professionals chemists, to for
(06:20):
chemists but also for chemists who'd like to have a
good time.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I mean there were and we talked about this before,
like scientific demonstrations in the you know, nineteenth century could
be everything from just like straight up science to a
little little magic, a little showmanship, involved a little flare.
People like Faraday were doing stuff like this in public.
There was a chemist named Frederick Acam I guess Accum
(06:47):
who would do these big public demonstrations that were, you know,
kind of part magic show, part science, and you could
even buy one of his sets. He had a chemistry set.
I don't think they were called chess at this point,
called alums still called the chests. Oh yeah, there it
is in the title Acom's Chest of Chemical Amusement again,
(07:09):
which you know lends itself to amusement. I think that
was the booklet was called Chemical amusement colon a series
of curious and instructive experiments in chemistry which are easily
performed and unattended by danger.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
That's important right there. Yeah, because one of the things
that kind of got all over chemistry sets over the
years was safety. And this was even like back in
the early nineteenth century that they were like, these can
be dangerous. So yeah, that was a big, a big
thing that he included that in the title of the
booklet that came with it.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, for sure, and all of this, you know, talk
of sort of magic and fun is a is a
long way to get to the fact that by the
sort of early ish eighteen hundreds and like eighteen thirty five,
they started saying, hey, these like we should sell these
to kids.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
These are fun.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You know who's trustworthy kids?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
There was one called the Eedies Youth Laboratory from eighteen
thirty five. A few years later was Statham's Students Chemical Laboratory,
and then by eighteen fifty six they had one called
Pike's Youth Chemical Cabinet.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Wow, chemical cabinet sounds amazing, it does. And then by
the time the twentieth century rolled around, so they were
making these things here or there for centuries by now
finally they were like, Okay, our market is young people
who are enthusiastic about chemistry, but also again wear capes
(08:36):
because they like magic. And one of the good examples
that Dave turned up about this was came out in
nineteen hundred. It was Kingsley's Primus Chemical Magic and Practical
Chemistry Cabinet, and it had everything you needed to carry
out like these serious chemistry experiments. And it came with
(08:57):
a booklet too that had plenty of instructions, but it
also had a lot of stuff to set things on
fire and instructions on how to essentially make fireworks and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, I would love to see a Venn diagram of
gen X kids who had chemistry sets.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, who could.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Pull a rabbit out of a hat or a card
out of somebody's ear and like knew how to do
the Rubik's cube and draw a flip book.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's the trifecta.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, that was my brother in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sure it's like oh Ruber's cube, Sure you.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Want to see how to solve it.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
But he wouldn't even say watch this. He'd be like, here,
let me help you.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I also, just as a little side note, I'm like,
why did they call that a primus chemistry cabinet? So
it turns out primus, one of the definitions of it
is a small stove that burns paraffin, so presumably that
was included in the kid as like a Bunsen burner.
And it went a little deeper. I was like, okay,
why is the band Imus called Primus? And it turns
(10:02):
out they were originally called the Primates. There was another
band called the Primates that said we will sue the
pants off of you if you call yourself the Primates.
So less Claypool and friends looked up primate definitions and
words and found out that Primus is the root word
for Primates, so they went with Primus instead.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Look at that one of my most hated bands of
all time. Really yeah, I hate Primus, And you know
what I'm gonna hear from Primis fans.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You are not yuck and you'r yum.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I love for you to love what you love, but
I've got to be able to hate Primis as well.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Sure they can't yung. You're yuck. Yeah, like everybody, It's
not like you're telling them not to listen, or that
they suck for listening.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
No, I'm sure they're great for certain years. It's just
that's not mine.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They have some good songs, though Chuck Jerry was a
race car driver. You honestly don't like that song, no, okay,
all right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
They also sound the same to me. They all sound
like his bass just all sounds.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Like that was really good impression actually, and.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
All the singing and just Downrue too.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, you don't like Primis.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I don't like it. Checks out. One of my very
best friends loves Primus, and so you know we cannot we.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Can all co exist, You're like, so I can say that, Yeah, exactly.
A lot of my friends are Primis fans. All right,
let's take a break and we'll enter the twenty twenties,
twentieth century right after this.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Sure loss a much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Okay, So I think, like I said, in the early
twenty century, they were like, yep, young boys who are
interested in chemistry, And let's go back and emphasize this boys.
That's who we're going to market these things too. Yeah,
this is who chemistry sets belonged to. Like little Boy
scientists who have an interest in chemistry, and the thing
(12:18):
that went basically throughout the twentieth century, at least up
until like the sixties. If you bought a chemistry set
for your kid, like that was the first step toward
being a professional chemist as they grew up.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, and you were guaranteed to have a little boy
on the front box.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That's just the way it was back then.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And we'll get to more of that sort of weird
sexism and science that still continues today in a little bit.
But one of the big players, there were a couple
of big ones. The first one was the Kim Craft Company.
Kimkraft Chemistry Set in nineteen sixteen was the first really
sort of popular toy chemistry set produced by the Porter
Chemical Company out of Merryland, and it was about a
(13:01):
buck fifty to maybe ten bucks if you were pretty
well healed, because that's it's about forty to three hundred
bucks today, so some pretty decent money you'd have to
throw down on the high end chemistry set back then.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, these had test tubes.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
By this point, you had an alcohol lamp, of course,
you had your weights and balances, and you had lots
of chemicals.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, this is like a serious chemistry set. It had
like all this stuff you needed, and it was substantial
in form right. The manual also was like we're going
to do some serious stuff. One of the first experiments
from this manual came from nineteen nineteen. That edition is
(13:43):
called Combination of Elements, and basically, you put powdered zinc
and sulfur on a metal spoon and start heating it.
Be sure to quote keep your face at a little distance.
And then as the mass becomes hot, the sulfur takes
fire and burns, and then the mixture starts to swell
to a bulky porous mass while on fire, and then
(14:04):
suddenly there's a flash and sulfur and zinc unite, chemically
forming zinc sulfide, and hopefully you have your eyebrows left afterwards.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, it's funny, Like the literal quote was keeping your
face at a little distance, and the first three times
I read that, I read it as keeping your little
face at a distance.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh, I wish they'd said that that's adorable.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It was.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It should have been keep your little face at a
great distance, because that was dangerous. There was also something
called fire ink, which is exactly what you think is
you would combine, or you may not know what you combined,
but you know what the result probably is. You combine
potassium nitrate and water in a test tube and then
write on a piece of paper and light that on fire,
(14:44):
and you know what you have spelled out is now
on fire.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, so the potassium nitrate water is the ink, the
fire ink, as it were, which sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Imagine being like, hello, how are you suddenly on fire
on a piece of paper. Your friend's kind of think
you're pretty I literally wrote neat with an exclamation point
after that one.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, but you would also probably be more likely to
write butthole or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Then, hey, how are you?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That's true? You know that's totally true. Also, I want
to take back the word literally. I'm really trying hard
to abandon that. Even when it's properly used. It's just
so so wrong these days.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Well, good for you, I think, literally, good for you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So what else?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, that was another experiment. This is so fun. It's
called making a fuse.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
That basically all you need to know is like, you know,
you can you can probably make things that'll blow up.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So you're gonna need a fuse.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, and that went really well with the manufacture of
colored fire, which was homemade fireworks. It was genuinely and
sincerely a flash in a pan because you would put
these different metals in and make for you make gunpowder.
The little kid would make gunpowder and then depending on
the chemical or metal that they added, it would burn
(16:03):
a different color in a pan as a flash. Genuinely.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, if you found another some cool research on like
just how dangerous some of these chemicals.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Were, right, Oh yeah, let's talk about those.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah. What else? What else was in there?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
In some of these sets that came out in the
twentieth century, there was iodine solution, which sounds kind of innocuous,
but they figured out over time that you could use
that to make meth with Okay, you could also if
you ate two grams of it or more, you would
probably die. I think ammonium nitrate was in that, which
is frequently used to make bombs.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
What else, Well, one thing you could do that was
fun is you could make smoke bombs right with that
potassium nitrate, which is I don't know if you mentioned
it's also in gunpowder. True, So a lot of these
experiments were like watch it flame, spark, or boom in
a small way.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Another one used to show up with sodium cyanide, which
is more commonly referred to as cyanide, and you would
bind two metals like make essentially dissolved gold into water,
metals into water. It's pretty neat, that's what it's used for.
But it's also a rapidly acting toxin that can kill
you dead pretty easily. And this was one of those
(17:20):
chemicals in the glass vials that arrived in the chemistry
sets for kids back then.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, and speaking of glass, or even some chemistry sets
that had the material and instruction for blowing glass, which
is no doubt a super cool, awesome thing to learn,
but it's you know, it's not something it should be
drying in their bedroom.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
No, I mean, it has to get really hot to
melt glass enough to blow it. One of my favorites
is calcium hypochlorite, which is one of the main ingredients
for chlorine gas, which was I think the first chemical
weapon to ever be banned by the world. So you
could make a chemical weapon in your bedroom if you
(18:02):
knew what you were doing.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And as we're saying, all this, we should point out
that these early kits and sets did not offer things
like eye protection, like not even a little pair of
like fun goggles, you know, like, hey kid, these are
cute and fun. You look like a real scientist if
you wear these, like just didn't come with them. And
the whole thing with you know that we tied it
into earlier with magic. A lot of them have like
(18:27):
hares or like you know, your science experiments you can do.
But also here's some just really fun, like sort of
literal magic tricks you can do.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right. There was one that's called the magic handkerchief. And
you take a handkerchief and you put I think blue
cobalt on it, and as you dry it out, I
think it turns white. You're no blue, and you can
change it to white magically by it instructs you to
ball it up and rub it in your hands for
a few minutes. Any magic trick that takes a few
(18:56):
minutes of repetitive motion is not a magic trick worth doing.
But it's what was great is it said, now here's
where you have some fun, and then it went on
to the next instruction. So these these were really mid
century written instruction booklets. That really captured the time. If
you think.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
About it, Shall we take a break?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Oh my, you bet?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
That was very insure, but we're doing it anyway. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
We loss so much stuff from Josh and shuck stuff fui.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
All right, So you're getting these chemistry sets. Another big
part of the whole sort of branding thing for these
companies making these and this was just sort of big
back in those days in the nineteen fifties was.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Like clubs, like kids clubs.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So if you got a chemistry set, it was a
pretty good chance it would come with like a membership
in like a science club, and there could be local
chapters that you get together with your friends and things
you could mail in for Probably a magazine is involved,
like a quarterly magazine. Certainly in the case of kim
Kraft they had the Science Club and the Kimcraft Chemists.
(20:23):
Was there was there rag that they sent out, which
was usually just ads for more stuff to buy, but
there are they were like kind of fun little stories
like where a kid would like save the day through
some cool chemistry experiment. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
They seem very Mark Trail esque, Yeah, for sure. So
in addition to Gilbert was essentially Kimcraft's rival, and Gilbert
was the company of Alfred Carlton Gilbert, who had invented
the original Erector Set thirteen that originally was debuted as
(20:59):
like an engineer's chemistry set. That's what directors were sold
as is. But so Gilbert was like, well, let's get
into chemistry too, So they came up with a Gilbert
Chemistry outfit for boys. So the name of the product
literally specifies that it's just for boys.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, And it had a little astisk and at the
very bottom it said must have penis.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
On the label too, Like the picture on the box
had a little boy with his shirt sleeves rolled up,
wearing a tie doing his chemistry stuff, like an eight
year old wearing a tie.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, this is nineteen twenty. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
So they found an instruction manual, not from the nineteen
twenty edition but from nineteen thirty six, and this one
finally did have a warning here and we should read
this because this is pretty fun. Gilbert Chemistry sets are
not intended for children who cannot read and understand the
accompanying instruction books. The sets do not contain dangerous poisons,
and the chemicals mentioned in this manual are not embraced
(22:01):
under the term poisons. They're perfectly safe to use if
handled carefully and intelligently. They're not intended to be taken
by mouth or swallowed, and no intelligent person would be
expected to use them for such purposes. So they're shaming.
At the same time. It is necessary, however, to emphasize
the fact that carelessness on the part of the experimenter
(22:22):
can always lead to trouble.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yes, and if you ever signed up for Disney Plus,
you can't sue us if you blow up and burn
your house.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Down, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And then they have a few tips at the end,
like you know, never point the open end of a
test tube that you're heating at anybody. Never just put
your nose at the end of one while heating to
smell it, or put your face with your little face
near it.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yep, exactly. So at least Gilbert's this is the thirties,
mid thirties where Gilbert's like, okay, we need to let
kids know, like you need to be responsible with this.
And that was actually I read one of the expectations
of chemistry sets in the middle of the twentieth century
that it went to a home populated by a boy
(23:03):
who had parents that taught that kid responsible stuff, how
to be responsible, how to handle chemicals correctly, how to
be safe, how to be smart. That that was kind
of part and parcel with buying a chemistry set. You
a parent, didn't just hand it to your kid and say, like,
leave me alone for a while, like you were supposed
to be involved, at least initially.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, at least looking over his shoulder with your least
pipe in your.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Mouth and knocking on the door and being like still
alive in there.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Right, mom, want you to always knock.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So we talked a little bit about the sort of
sexism involved with all this stuff. Is only marketed to boys.
Pictures of boys literally on the package for boys. In
some cases that was just the deal, was like boys
were scientists. Girls were not considered for science. That is
still a problem. There are so many initiatives these days
(23:58):
to get young girls into at a young age, very successfully,
you know, in a lot of cases, but it's still
a challenge to be a woman in the world of science.
I think we've heard from plenty of listeners who have
verified that. But in the nineteen twenties they did the
Porter Chypical Chemical Company did say, hey, we're some of
(24:19):
these things to boys. What about the girls, And they
were like, oh, how about Sashet craft the girl's sachet outfit,
which was chemistry in that it was a way to
mix perfumes.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, making flowery smells from aromatic powders.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah. It was basically a perfum set.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Right exactly. And they're still in use today. In Who
Do Love Potions? And I was looking at some of these,
and the names of the ones that I could find
were confusion, Destroy Everything is one of the potions. Follow
me gal was another one.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
No, I'll have that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So you want to steer clear of people using who
Do Love Potions on you because there's no telling what
they'll make you do is essentially the thinking behind it.
But they're made from sashe powders as well, That's why
I say that. I don't know if that was clear.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Eventually, in the nineteen sixties, Gilbert finally was like, all right,
let's make a four girls chemistry set. But even then,
in the books and stuff, it was like, so you
too can become a lab technician. A lab technician, Yeah,
like not, you know, they weren't encouraging you to reach
for the stars and become a scientist.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, it was like, so you could learn what you're
doing and go assist boy chemists, the real.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Kind, right, exactly, it's so nuts boo.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
So this was in the sixties. You said that at
least chemistry sets for girls came out, even if they
were still derogatory. That was the golden era of chemistry sets,
the fifties to the sixties. Usually about the early to
mid sixties, they say.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
We love a golden age.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, and this was definitely it. And I've seen in
multiple places that the reason why this was the golden
age of chemistry sets was because this was a time
when America in particular was feeling pretty good about science.
Not only had America been the first to come up
with the bomb, we were also making things like nylon.
(26:19):
We were making more durable goods out of plastics, like
science was improving people's lives, and at the heart of
this was chemistry. So there was a real desire to
keep the party going by creating the next generation of chemists,
by really going all in onto chemistry sets, and so
(26:39):
they started selling even better than they ever had before.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, the two slogans changed in the fifties and sixties.
For Kim Kraft, they changed it to porter Science prepares
young America for world leadership, and Gilbert responded in kind
with today's adventures in science will create tomorrow's America. And
it was this idea. I think even a c. Gilbert
the Founder like included a note that said hello boys,
(27:05):
that said, Hello boys, the need for chemistry is greater
now than any point in our country's history. This Gilbert
Chemistry set may well be the means of launching you
on a useful and well paying career. So it was like, Hey,
this is a toy, but if you're interested in science,
just wait, because there's a career out there waiting for you.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, if you like making things catch on fire, wait
until they pay you money to make things catch on fire.
You're gonna really like it. And so things just kind
of started to get like anything they could throw at
the wall. Because they were selling so many of these,
they were willing to try a lot more than just
the standard chemistry set. And one of the ones that
came out, chuck In I think nineteen fifty is widely considered,
(27:47):
at least by some the world's most dangerous toy.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It was it bag of glass.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It was even worse than that, although I don't know
at the end of the day, I think bag of
glass might be worse.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
That, of of course, was from the great Saturday Night
Live from the seventies, think dan Ackroyd. But we did,
or maybe you did, back in the day when we
were tasked with doing what are they called, what do
we call them image galleries? And you did something on
dangerous toys, and I think I remember like this was
in there, because I remember we talked about it, either
(28:22):
there or in a maybe a podcast or one of
the videos we used to do about the Atomic energy lab.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah, it had real uranium in it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
It did not only did it have four vials of
actual uranium or super radioactive uranium or well, I should
say actual radioactive uranium ore. There are also three different
sources of alpha, beta and gamma particle radiation too, So
this box was like quite radioactive. It was a legit,
(28:52):
real deal science box. It had a Geiger counter in it,
thank god. It had something called the spintherroscope. You could
look through it's almost like a seeing eyeglass. Now what
are they called like that, like a captain would like
pull out the not a telescope.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Like a sextant.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
No, it's like the telescope that's small and pocket sized
that telescopes into a smaller version of itself.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I mean think it's called telescope in it whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So it's like that, but you can actually watch radioactive
isotopes decaying under this thing. There was also a cloud
chamber in there, which is really impressive that they had
cloud chambers.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, is this the thing you sent? Yes? I did
not get a chance to look over this, so feel free.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Okay. So a cloud chamber is a specific kind of
like flask or vial that's set up to hold alcohol
vapor that in some way shape or form I guess
through magic. You can see the trails of radioactive particles
moving through the alcohol vapor, very similar to like a
(30:06):
contrail from an airplane, if you believe that those are
actually contrails. Yeah, and the particles, the lower, lesser active
radioactive particles would kind of zigzag and make little cute lines,
but that's because they were actually being slowed down by
the alcohol vapor.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
There.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Really strong ones would make a nice bold straight line
through there, and you could just see all these little
trails of radioactive particles show up in your own personal
cloud chamber that came in this play set. I know,
it was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well, the ones that came with uranium, they had you know, booklets.
One was called Prospecting for Uranium that taught you how
to mine a radioactive or so you're thinking, like all right,
like how literally how dangerous was this? There have been
modern calculations about, you know, what was contained in these boxes,
(30:59):
and suppose that the amount of radiation from the uranium
in one of these sets equaled about a day of
UV exposure from the sun. So it's not the most
dangerous thing in the world, but it is pretty funny
that it came with like actual uranium, right.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I couldn't find an answer though, like over what period
of time was it day's worth of UV exposure? Like
an hour if you spent the day with this thing,
Like I couldn't quite nail it down. But I'm from
the context that everybody describes it, and it sounds fairly harmless.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, and it's exposure, but like what if it's on
your skin or gets in your body somehow, your your.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Teeth, it can't be good.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So I saw that they only sold about five thousand
of them, and that it wasn't There's a great Atlas
Obscure video on this where they talked to a curator
at a science museum who opens one of these and
just talks about it, and she said that they were
discontinued after two years, not because of safety concerns, but
because they didn't sell very many. Because it was about
(31:57):
five hundred or something dollars in today's money for these things,
so most parents weren't like, sure, I'll buy you this,
you know, atomic lab for five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah, And here's the thing, it was just kind of fun.
We won't read through all these quotes, but a lot
of you know, legit Nobel winning chemistry chemists over the
years got their start in chemistry sets. I imagine a
lot of real deal scientists and chemists had these things
when they were kids. And we'll read one from Oliver Sacks,
(32:28):
the neurologist and author, said, I do not think there
can be any adequate substitute for having a chemistry set
or a little chemistry lab and doing experiments oneself, thinking
them out, taking responsibility for them, and occasionally facing risks too.
So Oliver Sacks talking about risk was one of the
big sort of cells of chemistry sets for kids, like
(32:49):
a little bit of danger involved. You know, they were
fun and all, but I think it was that little
bit of like, you know, you are making fire, you
are making things go boom or smoke. That was one
of the things that appealed to kids and probably still does, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
For sure. And the problem is is that over time,
so like kids who were like, I'm really into this
and I need to learn to be a responsible chemists
because I want to grow up to be a chemist.
Over like, there were also kids that got these that
were not that interested in being a chemist. They just
wanted to blow things up. And then I think also
there were kids who were responsible but just had accidents,
(33:26):
and so there were reports of people burning down their
family house with these chemistry sets are injuring themselves. And
that kind of coincided with a couple of things. One
this increasing interest in protecting kids from toys, and then
two also a greater emphasis on things like environmental pollutants
(33:50):
and toxins, and that whole like love of chemistry that
really carried everybody in the fifties and early sixties was
starting to be questioned and like, exactly where these chemicals
doing to us? So you put those two things combined,
and chemistry sets started.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
To take a hit, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
In sixty six, Congress passed the Child Protection Act, which
you know, all of a sudden you could ban a
toy that had something dangerous or hazardous in there. A
couple of years later, the US Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare they estimated that toys, just all toys, caused
about seven hundred thousand injuries a year. So more regulations
(34:28):
were passed in the late sixties and early seventies seventies
for like you said, just protecting kids from dangers and
toys and what these toys were made of, in the
case of chemistry sets, like the chemicals that were in there.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah. So, like this increasing concern among parents and what
are in these chemistry sets led to decline in sales,
and in fact, Porter Chemical and Gilbert the two rivals
who've made Chemcraft and Gilbert Chemistry sets, were bought by
a toy maker named Gabriel Toys. You might recognize that
name from Othello Trouble. The pottery craft activity, a little
(35:06):
set where you could make your own pottery You remember
that it was this little pottery wheel.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
And probably remember the box.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You can you definitely would, but you could recreate that
scene from Ghost.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
But for cheap Yeah, yeah, as a teenager too.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Anyway, Gabriel they bought those two in nineteen sixty seven,
and by the eighties they were like, no chemistry set.
You just couldn't sell them. Some companies went on like, no,
we're going to keep the flame going, but they really
really watered them down starting in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, for sure, and that I mean, I guess my
brother would have had one probably from the seventies, so
it may have still been a little bit legit. But yeah,
in the eighties they started literally watering them down, watering
down the chemicals. Things you know, became plastic, like you
didn't get glass test tubes and metal scales and stuff
(35:58):
like that anymore. Like you know, the old kids were
just sort of smaller condensed versions of like the real deal,
and that all changed. They just became cheaper, kind of
like everything else. I think in two thousand and one
there was a recall of a set called Professor Wacko's
Exothermic Exuberance that had glycerine and potassium.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
What is that work?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Manging it?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, okay, great, and that could cause things to catch
on fire and spontaneously combust. These these this particular kid
had containers with removable lids, but they weren't labeled, so
kids were mislabeling things or just getting them confused basically
because there were no labels. And there were two separate
house fire incidents. So that one was recalled and that
(36:46):
was I mean that was in the early two thousands.
It was surprising those were still around.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I think those people try to throw back to
like the real deal and it just didn't quite work.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
There was another one that's YESI Fingerprinting Examination Kit, which
sounds extremely innocuous, but it was recalled in two thousand
and seven because they found out that the fingerprint powder
that you used to dust for prints with had asbestos
in it. It was up to five percent asbestos, which
is obviously I think a mesothelioma causing carcinogen. Yeah, so
(37:20):
that was like no, and parents were like, what are
you guys doing. Stop selling our kids, Like, we're clearly
into products safety, Stop selling our kids this stuff. So
a toymaker named oh, I don't know who made it,
but they came out with a set called Chemistry sixty
and they were like, watch this. This is sixty fun
(37:40):
activities with no chemicals.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
In other words, boring this. This is the irony here.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Despite that it had no chemicals, it had two kinds
of safety goggles, the goggles and those little clear safety
glasses made out of whatever they're made out of, the
chat non chat or something.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And to fold it up, nanny who came out of
the box to hover while all of these experiments are
going on, and you could get the items that you needed,
Like you did need some chemicals, but these are like
kitchen level chemicals like vinegar, baking, soda, that kind of stuff.
And I thought that was kind of reminiscent. Remember, Dave
came up with a bunch of quotes of Nobel scientists
(38:21):
who credit chemistry sets for like increasing their or starting
their interest in science. There was one other scientist named
Kerrie Mullis who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in
ninety three, who said that their objective with their chemistry
set was to figure out what things I might put
together to cause an explosion, and that they discovered whatever
chemicals might be missing, they could buy them at the
(38:44):
local drug store or hardware store, and so like that's
this is like the antithesis of that, Rather than being
like I need more explosive stuff or I need this
other thing to make this explosion happen. I'm going to
go down to the drug store hardware store.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
This was.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I'm going to go to the kitchen and make a
baking soda and vinegar volcano in this chemistry set that
my parents bought me, and then I'm going to go
to sleep and maybe hopefully never wake up.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Dave did a little research, though, and found that there
are some pretty good ones today that you can still get.
There are some companies that are, you know, trying to
make a safe version of a real deal chemistry set
these days. This one called I don't know, it's TIMS
or Themes in this case, and Cosmos with a K.
It's called the kim C three thousand, two hundred and
(39:34):
eighty bucks plus money for chemicals, So it better be
good for that kind of dough.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. It got best overall Chemistry set by the Wall
Street Journal in two thousand and six. I didn't know
the Wall Street Journal rated such things.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
But it makes steen years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It does make sense that they would rate it though,
because these some of the legit chemistry sets sold today. Therefore,
like homeschoolers like, who need this kind of stuff? And
in fact, if you want to plunk down six hundred
and forty five simoleans, you can get a chemistry set
that covers an entire year of eleventh grade chemistry. Oh wow,
(40:10):
pretty neat. I also saw one other reason that chemistry
sets kind of got watered down over the years are
meth labs. People were finding like they could actually buy
these things and use them to make meth. Right, So
there was another there was another prong to like be like,
we need to really stop making these legit chemistry sets. Yeah,
got anything else?
Speaker 3 (40:31):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
You know, support support science for your for your kids,
little little girls, little boys, get them, get them a
chemistry set.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Very nice, That's what I say.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
That's right. Since Chuck gave us a nice PSA, it's
time of course for a listener, mate.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I'm going to call this all caught up. Hey, everybody
got hooked on your show. In twenty nineteen, after a
few weeks of listening, I decided I had to listen
to all of it, and after five years, I finally
have completed that task. Just finished listening to the Judas
Priest suicide trial during a morning trail run, and now
I feel like I have a little void in my life.
You guys having to wait patiently throughout the week for
(41:10):
new content. I often listen for hours on end during
trail runs training for ultra marathons. By the way, Josh
has many times called them ultrathons, which never fails to
give me a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Ultrathon is that another thing?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I think they're called ultra marathons. Ultrathon is like a
bad guy on in a character Yeah, and some Japanese anime.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah. I like ultrathon.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Your voices and content, guys, always give me keep me
in a positive mood, even when I'm at the point
of exhaustion. You've been with me and my wife through
some big life events, our marriage, multiple cross country moves,
new jobs.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
And now a new baby in a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
And by the time this comes out, that baby will
be around, I would imagine, because we're ahead by a
few weeks at this point.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
So keep up the great work, guys.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
I can continue to share this and enjoy it with
my family as it grows by one. Maybe a long shot,
but I'd love to see a live show up here
in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That you get a couple one
hundred people in a room here, that's for Matt. Well, Matt,
we got a couple of hundred people in a room
in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, we can't get worse than that, right.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, I'd rather go to Halifax than have a hometown
show be under sold.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, you got any barns in Halifax, Matt. That we
can do is.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Showing that Bet Matt has a barn.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Well. Congratulations in advance retroactively to you and your family
for your baby's birth. And if you want to get
in touch with us like Matt did and tell us
how much we've kept you going on your ultrathons, you
can do so by sending us an email to Stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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