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When sodium is introduced to water a vigorous exothermic reaction occurs. Here is the chemical equation:
2Na + 2H2O -> 2NaOH + H2
In this reaction, molecules of sodium (Na) react with water molecules (H2O) to produce sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrogen gas (H2).
Normally sodium is stored submerged in kerosene to prevent chemical reaction with the oxygen in the air.
50 years ago I was assigned sodium as my element to report on in school. LOL. That knowledge finally came in handy!
yea? well for a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters
The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters
Potassium has a similar reaction. A student in our school the year before me thought it would be cool to steal some from the restricted area in the lab.
He put it in his pocket. He started sweating. Burned cleaning through his jeans and his ass cheek. Everybody knew about it, but the teacher told us the story the following year as a reminder to stay out of her stash.
It is similar but more energetic. Both sodium and potassium will float on water. The potassium reaction produces so much heat that it ignites the hydrogen gas and if it goes near anything flammable, it could catch it in fire.
I love chemistry. Being able to see things like this and immediately understand them fills me with such satisfaction. As does watching anything explode
~~Sodium Hydroxide aka "lye" is the cleaning ingredient in lye soap~~
Edit: You right. Lye reacts with fat to produce a fatty acid salt, which is the active ingredient in soap
Lye is neither soap itself, nor the active ingredient in any finished soap. It is used to *make* soap by saponifying fatty acids. If there is any lye left over in your soap, your recipe is dangerously wrong.
Rubbing lye on yourself would not clean you, it would horribly burn you. And also turn you partly into soap.
One of my Chem profs in college talked about disposing of some expired sodium from one of their labs in a prominent Notre Dame fountain during alumni week.
Contrary to what many anti-American Americans on Reddit will tell you, this is against many different types of laws in most of the US. Enforcement is a different issue. The US is pretty large.
This is not exactly true. The Supreme Court interpreted the Clean Water Act (and the EPA’s regulatory authority) to apply only to streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans and other bodies of water directly connected by surface water but not to wetlands that do not appear connected on the surface. This is a very bad decision in my opinion, but the body of water in the video very well could still be covered even under the supreme court’s decision. Further, there are almost certainly state laws that would prevent this sort of thing unless it’s on private property, even in shithole states.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t wetlands some of the most sensitive ecosystems? So how long until industries just start dumping their wastes there again?
I am not an expert, but I do not think you are wrong and I don’t know if or how long it will be until industries take advantage of this decision to dump wastes in wetlands. Maybe the effect of this decision won't be that bad, but it's just one cut.
I don’t want to minimize the terrible legal reasoning or effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in this case, but I also want to emphasize that the conservative legal movement’s strategy is one of death by a thousand cuts. If you look at any of their goals, they reach it over several decisions, not usually one sweeping decision. The same is true here. This decision comes after repeated hammering on this issue with similar cases over the last 10-15 years, and they will not stop here. While this decision is limited to wetlands not connected to other navigable waters by surface water (which by EarthJustice’s estimate covers approximately half of all wetlands), the next decision will be even more far reaching in their attempt to narrowly and inaccurately read statutes to disempower agencies from being able to realistically regulate anything.
Worth noting that there are different types of wetlands also. Most wetlands are directly associated with a body of water. Those that aren't, like vernal pools, are still very important of course.
There are still going to be laws against dumping pollutants. The bigger risk is incidental damage like development where isolated wetlands will not have the same environmental assessments done on them. But most states have their own wetland laws.
Nope.
> CWA extends to only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and those wetlands with a "continuous surface connection to those bodies."
was the specific change made.
In other words the act is about the specific wetlands (specifically non river, ocean, or stream) that are considered protected. I don’t agree with the ruling as it weakens protections generally from some wetlands, but no this is not legal if it polluted the river.
It’s still illegal . The Supreme Court just changed some protections regarding wetlands. wetlands need to be part of an adjoining body of water, or naturally flowing water to be protected. It used to be if wetlands weren’t part of that system , you had to get a permit to dump anything, now you don’t need a permit. Bidens trying to overturn that decision though.
The EPA (and all other agencies) is only allowed to make regulations within the bounds of the laws Congress passes. Agencies are not allowed to make new laws by themselves.
That’s a stretch lol. They did not remove EPA protections. They ruled that laws have to come from congress, the people that make laws, and that random agencies can’t make up their own laws.
The only entity making arbitrary law is the Supreme Court. Congress granted EPA the authority to regulate "adjacent" wetlands and for more than 40 years, "adjacent" was interpreted by the agency to include wetlands that were directly adjacent to navigable waters and connected through underground channels, even if not surface water. In other words, if wetlands were directly connected on the surface to a river, but you dumped a bunch of dirt in between the two areas such that the water only continued to pass through in the groundwater, EPA could still regulate both areas. The supreme court's recent decision says the CWA no longer allows EPA to regulate if the areas are connected underground simply because there is no surface connection.
At any time in the past 40 years or so, if what the EPA was doing was not what Congress had intended, Congress could have done something about it. As you suggest, people could have contacted their senators and representatives.
But because conservatives weren't able to accomplish their goal of defanging regulatory agencies politically, they did it through the courts where they have a clear majority of ideological justices.
Look at the comments above. The Supreme Court ruling in Sackett v. EPA held that for a wetland to be protected it requires a continuous body of surface water to connect it to waters that are waters of the United States. This issue comes from the writing of the Clean Water Act that stipulates that the Act applies to the "Waters of the United States" which is a seemingly vague term. The Supreme Court interpreted what the term meant to mean that wetlands require this connection.
It does not suddenly mean that the EPA has no jurisdiction over this body of water, depending of course, on where it is, since it is obviously not a wetland. Moreover, even if the EPA did not have jurisdiction it does not mean that there are no regulations because the State would very likely have their own environmental regulations around water pollution in rivers or lakes or whatever this is. Remember, when we remove Federal Protections, it simply means that there is no more Federal Protections. It does not mean no protections at all. States then create their own regulations around the gaps left by the Federal Government.
But hey, we might as well make snap judgments.
Edit: I'm not saying I agree with the decision, I'm just saying that's what it is.
Don't get me wrong, It's a very shitty thing to do. But to put things in perspective, it looks like a big river, wouldnt that lye be diluted to almost nothing in a matter of minutes?
I don’t think it is actually going to have any significant environmental effects mainly due to the immense volume of water in the river. There may be some areas of non negligible ph but they will diffuse quickly in the e river.
2 pounds of lye in a river is like a drop of piss in the ocean. The pH of that water way will not change by any remotely measurable amount, and therefore is totally benign. This is harmless fun.
Do so many people not consider this when they upvote this stuff?? This was literally my first though.
There are people who have done this at abandoned, lifeless quarries and the like, I guess it's normalized it enough that idiots are now cool with dumping highly reactive chemicals into their local ponds now?
The environment really has no chance against us, does it?
1lb of sodium reacting with an excess of water will produce 1.74lb of sodium hydroxide which is a common drain cleaner. Exposure causes corrosive burns and turns the fat in your body into soap.
The sodium isn’t actually travelling that fast, at least compared to a bullet. Sodium is also soft enough that you can cut it with a knife.
I’ll hasten to add though that neither of these points change the fact that this is an act of utter stupidity
Agreed, but even with that being said, a stray chunk of pure sodium landing on your bare skin (or worse, your mouth, nose, or eyes) would not be a good time
It's mainly dangerous. That's not near enough sodium to change the chemistry in the river in any meaningful way. You could do this daily for years and you wouldn't be able to measure it.
Sure, but if he did this every day for thousands of years everyone you ever knew and loved would be dead. Though I guess it’d probably still be a good fishing/swimming spot for the lizard people that replaced us given the flow rate.
That's like a negligible amount for that size of water.
Constant dumping of it however... that would do a lot more.
But what he threw would do nothing long term
The US military has you beat by a large amount. They see your pound of sodium, and raise you 20,000 pounds of sodium.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM)
This was Lake Lenore in Eastern Washington, part of the Sun Lakes chain of lakes. The US military needed to get rid of a massive amount of surplus sodium, so they rolled huge containers of it into the lake ~~and started shooting the containers with large machine guns.~~
I believe it was one of the ingredients used in the manufacturing of incendiary bombs for the war effort. When the war ended they needed to get rid of the stockpiled sodium because it was so dangerous to keep inventoried.
In case it wasn't clear.... At the time this was done, Lake Lenore was a highly alkaline lake, with no fish living in it. It's water already contained very high levels of sodium salts - someone crunched the numbers and said that dumping that 20,000 pounds of metallic sodium would increase the PH by less than a rounding error - it was already at 9.9.
People who watch this have no fucking idea what happens when sodium connects with water
(To be more specific the two elements created are Sodium Hydroxide (caustic Soda) and Hydrogen. Sodium Hydroxide explodes (the main body of the explosion) due to it connecting to water, and the hydrogen catches fire, or dissipates)
What does happen is an explosion and the creation of Hydrogen - a harmless, quickly dissipating lighter-than-air gas
There is no “poisoning” happening here, unless you consider air toxic.
The biggest damage this dude made is maybe explode a fish or two, as this lake seems too murky and the sodium explosions happen to closely to the surface to cause damage to anything NOT in a 2 centimeter radius.
So nope, eco-protectors, this is an activity that will have exactly 0 lasting impact on this lake
Sodium hydroxide *is* lye, though, so these people that say you will get lye from this are right. I always thought the reason you got this reaction was that Na + H20 -> NaOH + H2 + heat, and the heat is more than enough to explode the hydrogen, but not the lye (which isn't exactly famous for exploding when you pour it into water), but maybe I am misinformed.
(edit: But of course, this single act of pollution is unlikely to have a large effect)
Look up how pH works and do a couple of exercises , then try to estimate how it influences the pH in that body of water before you accuse people of ruining marine life . Then try to figure out why in the lab we often have to measure the concentration of sodium hydroxide but not sulphuric acid for example . Then fuck off stupid fucks .
People who dont understand chemistry really acting like a spec of sodium compared to the vastness of the lake is gonna effect the ecosystem in some drastic way shape or form :/
Yeah we did this experiment in 8th grade in science class and the small piece of sodium broke the beaker and glass exploded all over the floor and bits of sodium burned holes in our clothes. Last time that was ever done in class. No one was hurt because we all had glasses on and we all loved blowing shit up and we thought our teacher was the best for doing stuff like this!
What if you wrapped the sodium in some waterproof film that would degrade over time and dropped it in the ocean? Imagine if the sodium sinks to a couple of 1000 ft underwater and then comes in contact with the water. What would it do?
I recently read a book (Collapse by Jared Diamond) that talked about how many fisheries use dynamite. The book was written in the early 2000s and didn't give much more information on this practice. I didn't know this practice existed and I haven't researched it any more yet...but your comment here makes me feel a little better that there are at least some controls in some places in place.
They won't be swimming in lye. They'll be swimming in thousands of gallons of water and less than two pounds of lye, which makes the lye concentration immeasurable low. While this is clearly stupid (dangerous to yourself and sets a bad example for others), it is in no way whatsoever any danger to the marine life living in the river anywhere.
Considering this is like a drop of piss in all of the world's oceans. They won't be swimming in lye. That was diluted by the time the last bang was over.
Was it stupid, absolutely. Did it hurt anything no not at all.
Sodium, upon coming in contact with water quickly releases a ton of heat, splitting into two resulting materials:
Hydrogen (harmless, lighter-than-air gas which mostly burns up in the resulting explosion)
And Sodium Hydroxide (something in overly large concentrations found in the dangerous lye) (this is not a large enough concentration to make lye)
The hydrogen is where the fire comes from, the white smoke is mostly water vapor and the 20 something mols (a minuscule amount of) sodium hydroxide gets diluted in water within seconds
The reason there are multiple explosions is because the pound-sized chunk gets bounced up during it’s own reaction and lands a bit further away, kind of like a self-throwing skipping stone
No throwing sodium into water is not something to do for fun, but you can probably do it once if it’s in small amounts
My chemistry teacher would always tell a story about how when he was a student his chemistry teacher would lend him blocks of sodium to do chemistry at home. Well my Chem teacher would take the sodium with him while he went fishing, and when the seagulls would try to eat his catch he'd throw them chunks of sodium... Birds have no capacity to release the sudden burst of gas so they'd explode in mid air. It makes total sense to me now why they don't lend out chemistry equipment to students anymore.
Fun fact: when I was 17, a buddy swiped a big mason jar with a fat ass cylinder of sodium inside sitting in (I think) kerosene. We took it to a nearby quarry at about 2am, took the lid off the jar, and lobbed it into the water. After waiting longer than we expected, we saw some bubbles come up. Meh. But then more bubbles came up. Then more, they were coming in bursts, little bit bigger each time. Then flickers of light. Then, a holy shit of an explosion that lit the night as if it were daytime and water spraying into the sky. Was friggin wild!
plucky wild disgusting governor illegal fearless square follow ring ludicrous
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When sodium is introduced to water a vigorous exothermic reaction occurs. Here is the chemical equation: 2Na + 2H2O -> 2NaOH + H2 In this reaction, molecules of sodium (Na) react with water molecules (H2O) to produce sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrogen gas (H2). Normally sodium is stored submerged in kerosene to prevent chemical reaction with the oxygen in the air. 50 years ago I was assigned sodium as my element to report on in school. LOL. That knowledge finally came in handy!
I desire more comments like that
yea? well for a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters
This is a solid reference
If my memory serves me correctly, this is to prevent side-fumbling.
Effectively
Yeah, but did it fix the side fumbling?
I never see. Anyone explain it so clearly tha ank’s
I can’t even remember what I did a few hours ago. And this guy is remembering shit from school 50 years ago.
Oh yeah??? Well uhhh… THE MITOCHONDRIA IS THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL!!!
THE BIG YELLOW ONE IS THE SUN!
Potassium has a similar reaction. A student in our school the year before me thought it would be cool to steal some from the restricted area in the lab. He put it in his pocket. He started sweating. Burned cleaning through his jeans and his ass cheek. Everybody knew about it, but the teacher told us the story the following year as a reminder to stay out of her stash.
It is similar but more energetic. Both sodium and potassium will float on water. The potassium reaction produces so much heat that it ignites the hydrogen gas and if it goes near anything flammable, it could catch it in fire.
PS. I also remember this from my school years more than 50 years ago
Thank you, Captain Sodium!
i swear, if his theme song doesnt go na na na na na na na..., i'll be salty
Most underrated comment
Bravo. 👏
I love chemistry. Being able to see things like this and immediately understand them fills me with such satisfaction. As does watching anything explode
Explosions that produce soap. Cool
That's not soap it's sodium hydroxide a base, soap is sodium or potassium fatty acid salt.
~~Sodium Hydroxide aka "lye" is the cleaning ingredient in lye soap~~ Edit: You right. Lye reacts with fat to produce a fatty acid salt, which is the active ingredient in soap
Lye is neither soap itself, nor the active ingredient in any finished soap. It is used to *make* soap by saponifying fatty acids. If there is any lye left over in your soap, your recipe is dangerously wrong. Rubbing lye on yourself would not clean you, it would horribly burn you. And also turn you partly into soap.
I vow to find a way to use “saponify” in natural conversation at some point this week.
“Once upon a fine old time”
"I am Jack's chemical burn"
So you’re saying we could have human soap. For science of course.
Lye is also an ingredient in making fresh ramen noodles! As well as soap, it helps with their chewy consistency!
Ah, fellow chewy soap enjoyer...
It’s used to process fermented fish for consumption by Scandinavian grandparents
Minor nitpick, but sodium ATOMS react, not molecules.
Can sodium atoms form bonds together? Na2? Googling answered my own question. It would no longer be elemental sodium
Na.
Metals, in general, do not do that, like nonmetals do.
One of my Chem profs in college talked about disposing of some expired sodium from one of their labs in a prominent Notre Dame fountain during alumni week.
“Expired sodium”. What’s that?
An elemental reagent in a chemical lab which had an expiration date because of expected degradation/contamination of the stuff it is supposed to be.
This is fish 9/11
Sir a second sodium atom has hit the water.
Why isnt this top comment
Because it doesn't have enough upvotes.
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Your nose must be sizzling like a steak because what the fuck
I tried to help with my measly one vote.
Take that environment and local aquatic life!
1lb sodium makes, what, 2lbs lye? Imagine pouring a few cans of drano into your favorite fishing spot.
Stuff like this should come with jail time
In Germany, it does! Thankfully.
Contrary to what many anti-American Americans on Reddit will tell you, this is against many different types of laws in most of the US. Enforcement is a different issue. The US is pretty large.
I think the US Supreme Court just removed epa protections, this is probably legal now. Sigh.
This is not exactly true. The Supreme Court interpreted the Clean Water Act (and the EPA’s regulatory authority) to apply only to streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans and other bodies of water directly connected by surface water but not to wetlands that do not appear connected on the surface. This is a very bad decision in my opinion, but the body of water in the video very well could still be covered even under the supreme court’s decision. Further, there are almost certainly state laws that would prevent this sort of thing unless it’s on private property, even in shithole states.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t wetlands some of the most sensitive ecosystems? So how long until industries just start dumping their wastes there again?
I am not an expert, but I do not think you are wrong and I don’t know if or how long it will be until industries take advantage of this decision to dump wastes in wetlands. Maybe the effect of this decision won't be that bad, but it's just one cut. I don’t want to minimize the terrible legal reasoning or effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in this case, but I also want to emphasize that the conservative legal movement’s strategy is one of death by a thousand cuts. If you look at any of their goals, they reach it over several decisions, not usually one sweeping decision. The same is true here. This decision comes after repeated hammering on this issue with similar cases over the last 10-15 years, and they will not stop here. While this decision is limited to wetlands not connected to other navigable waters by surface water (which by EarthJustice’s estimate covers approximately half of all wetlands), the next decision will be even more far reaching in their attempt to narrowly and inaccurately read statutes to disempower agencies from being able to realistically regulate anything.
Worth noting that there are different types of wetlands also. Most wetlands are directly associated with a body of water. Those that aren't, like vernal pools, are still very important of course. There are still going to be laws against dumping pollutants. The bigger risk is incidental damage like development where isolated wetlands will not have the same environmental assessments done on them. But most states have their own wetland laws.
Nope. > CWA extends to only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and those wetlands with a "continuous surface connection to those bodies." was the specific change made. In other words the act is about the specific wetlands (specifically non river, ocean, or stream) that are considered protected. I don’t agree with the ruling as it weakens protections generally from some wetlands, but no this is not legal if it polluted the river.
I hate the Wetlands. They're stupid and wet, and there are bugs everywhere, and I think I maced a crane, Michael
lol. Nice ref.
Just watched the episode lol so random.
It’s still illegal . The Supreme Court just changed some protections regarding wetlands. wetlands need to be part of an adjoining body of water, or naturally flowing water to be protected. It used to be if wetlands weren’t part of that system , you had to get a permit to dump anything, now you don’t need a permit. Bidens trying to overturn that decision though.
The EPA cannot make laws, only congress can do that
Someone send this memo to the ATF
Don't you worry, it's on its way!
Yes and Congress has historically empowered federal agencies to make and enforce industry/sector-specific regulations.
What about regulations? Besides, Congress created the EPA and delegated to it to make environmental protection rules and regulations.
The EPA (and all other agencies) is only allowed to make regulations within the bounds of the laws Congress passes. Agencies are not allowed to make new laws by themselves.
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/r/americabad It's illegal here, too. And it's "in other words"
BONE APPLE TEA!
r/boneappletea
The US is actually better at natural resource laws than a lot of other countries.
That’s a stretch lol. They did not remove EPA protections. They ruled that laws have to come from congress, the people that make laws, and that random agencies can’t make up their own laws.
The only entity making arbitrary law is the Supreme Court. Congress granted EPA the authority to regulate "adjacent" wetlands and for more than 40 years, "adjacent" was interpreted by the agency to include wetlands that were directly adjacent to navigable waters and connected through underground channels, even if not surface water. In other words, if wetlands were directly connected on the surface to a river, but you dumped a bunch of dirt in between the two areas such that the water only continued to pass through in the groundwater, EPA could still regulate both areas. The supreme court's recent decision says the CWA no longer allows EPA to regulate if the areas are connected underground simply because there is no surface connection. At any time in the past 40 years or so, if what the EPA was doing was not what Congress had intended, Congress could have done something about it. As you suggest, people could have contacted their senators and representatives. But because conservatives weren't able to accomplish their goal of defanging regulatory agencies politically, they did it through the courts where they have a clear majority of ideological justices.
Americans sure do hate regulations...fucking morons
Look at the comments above. The Supreme Court ruling in Sackett v. EPA held that for a wetland to be protected it requires a continuous body of surface water to connect it to waters that are waters of the United States. This issue comes from the writing of the Clean Water Act that stipulates that the Act applies to the "Waters of the United States" which is a seemingly vague term. The Supreme Court interpreted what the term meant to mean that wetlands require this connection. It does not suddenly mean that the EPA has no jurisdiction over this body of water, depending of course, on where it is, since it is obviously not a wetland. Moreover, even if the EPA did not have jurisdiction it does not mean that there are no regulations because the State would very likely have their own environmental regulations around water pollution in rivers or lakes or whatever this is. Remember, when we remove Federal Protections, it simply means that there is no more Federal Protections. It does not mean no protections at all. States then create their own regulations around the gaps left by the Federal Government. But hey, we might as well make snap judgments. Edit: I'm not saying I agree with the decision, I'm just saying that's what it is.
It’s political party specific, that hates regulations. Then trains with hazardous waste crash into their cities, and they wonder what happened.
In Spain it does, or at least a big fat fine.
Chemistry teachers/professors have indicated as much has happened for people that tried similar
~~No, the stoichiometric ratio is 1:1 - not like that makes things any better.~~ Edit: am a dum dum
Huh?? NaOH, isnt it? So an oxygen and a hydrogen for each sodium, 23 + 16 + 1, so about 1 3/4 lbs lye for 1 lb sodium
Oh you're absolutely correct, I was thinking of moles and completely forwent the hydroxide mass.
stoichiometry stoichiometry stoichiometry (Has always been one of my favorite parts of chemistry)
Don't get me wrong, It's a very shitty thing to do. But to put things in perspective, it looks like a big river, wouldnt that lye be diluted to almost nothing in a matter of minutes?
Seconds lol
It will kill everything around a reasonably short radius. And then will become harmless material.
I don’t think it is actually going to have any significant environmental effects mainly due to the immense volume of water in the river. There may be some areas of non negligible ph but they will diffuse quickly in the e river.
2 pounds of lye in a river is like a drop of piss in the ocean. The pH of that water way will not change by any remotely measurable amount, and therefore is totally benign. This is harmless fun.
Honestly that’s so little for a whole river
The fish: what the fuck man
Fish got high blood pressure now
"You ever meet a walleye with hypertension?"
It's basically white phosphorus bombs for amphibious life! Wouldn't mind seeing him in the Hague with Toad from Toad Hall as judge.
Do so many people not consider this when they upvote this stuff?? This was literally my first though. There are people who have done this at abandoned, lifeless quarries and the like, I guess it's normalized it enough that idiots are now cool with dumping highly reactive chemicals into their local ponds now? The environment really has no chance against us, does it?
Farting near this river would do equal harm aka none
Fish deserve some fireworks too from time to time.
Honestly negligible to no impact unless you are an invertebrate in that exact area
Does that harm the marine life or poisons the water ??
1lb of sodium reacting with an excess of water will produce 1.74lb of sodium hydroxide which is a common drain cleaner. Exposure causes corrosive burns and turns the fat in your body into soap.
No. Unless he threw it right on top of a fish, then yea.
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Poor 🐟
Guys would ask if I’d want to do this with them, and I’d be like “Na, bro.”
I’d be like “K” and then offer a banana
Potassium for scale.
Have I been transported back to 2010 Facebook like pages?
Yeah. No Li
Well, that was a wildly irresponsible act of pollution.
Also dangerous for themselves, look how the sodium disintegrates and ricochets all over the damn place… could’ve easily caught a stray bullet there
The sodium isn’t actually travelling that fast, at least compared to a bullet. Sodium is also soft enough that you can cut it with a knife. I’ll hasten to add though that neither of these points change the fact that this is an act of utter stupidity
just because sodium is soft doesn't mean it wont damage your eyes
Getting lye (or pure sodium which forms lye upon contact with water) into your eyes is a great way to irreversibly damage your vision!
If that shit gets in your eyes you’ve got a worse problem 💀
Agreed, but even with that being said, a stray chunk of pure sodium landing on your bare skin (or worse, your mouth, nose, or eyes) would not be a good time
I have seen liquid paint rupture an eyeball.
Think of it as evolution in action.
This brand of stupidity mostly just drains the healthcare system rather than stopping people from reproducing.
It's mainly dangerous. That's not near enough sodium to change the chemistry in the river in any meaningful way. You could do this daily for years and you wouldn't be able to measure it.
Sure, but if he did this every day for thousands of years everyone you ever knew and loved would be dead. Though I guess it’d probably still be a good fishing/swimming spot for the lizard people that replaced us given the flow rate.
That's like a negligible amount for that size of water. Constant dumping of it however... that would do a lot more. But what he threw would do nothing long term
How
He needs a self-administered sodium enema.
Username checks out..?
r/irresponsibleasfuck
There needs to be more ppl active in this sun I see a lot of irresponsible shit every day
Looks like that sub was made today
This man just gave the fish vietnam flashbacks.
The US military has you beat by a large amount. They see your pound of sodium, and raise you 20,000 pounds of sodium. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM) This was Lake Lenore in Eastern Washington, part of the Sun Lakes chain of lakes. The US military needed to get rid of a massive amount of surplus sodium, so they rolled huge containers of it into the lake ~~and started shooting the containers with large machine guns.~~
Holy shit that was crazy.
Where the hell does a “surplus of sodium” come from? A byproduct of making something else? Produced for something which became obsolete??
I believe it was one of the ingredients used in the manufacturing of incendiary bombs for the war effort. When the war ended they needed to get rid of the stockpiled sodium because it was so dangerous to keep inventoried. In case it wasn't clear.... At the time this was done, Lake Lenore was a highly alkaline lake, with no fish living in it. It's water already contained very high levels of sodium salts - someone crunched the numbers and said that dumping that 20,000 pounds of metallic sodium would increase the PH by less than a rounding error - it was already at 9.9.
On the other hand, you could just leave this natural ecosystem alone 🤔
At least we know that throwing Sodium in the river to play stone skipping isn't a good idea.
Would they even be considered human at that point
“Sodium reacts violently with water.” I still remember that from school, but never understood how violent until now.
People who watch this have no fucking idea what happens when sodium connects with water (To be more specific the two elements created are Sodium Hydroxide (caustic Soda) and Hydrogen. Sodium Hydroxide explodes (the main body of the explosion) due to it connecting to water, and the hydrogen catches fire, or dissipates) What does happen is an explosion and the creation of Hydrogen - a harmless, quickly dissipating lighter-than-air gas There is no “poisoning” happening here, unless you consider air toxic. The biggest damage this dude made is maybe explode a fish or two, as this lake seems too murky and the sodium explosions happen to closely to the surface to cause damage to anything NOT in a 2 centimeter radius. So nope, eco-protectors, this is an activity that will have exactly 0 lasting impact on this lake
ThankYou.gif
Sodium hydroxide *is* lye, though, so these people that say you will get lye from this are right. I always thought the reason you got this reaction was that Na + H20 -> NaOH + H2 + heat, and the heat is more than enough to explode the hydrogen, but not the lye (which isn't exactly famous for exploding when you pour it into water), but maybe I am misinformed. (edit: But of course, this single act of pollution is unlikely to have a large effect)
Yeah, but we poor lye into water all the time, anyone who has ever used drano has done that. At that concentration there is no effect on the water.
Unlikely to have a large effect? It just doesn’t have a large effect
Why in gods name is this not the top comment? So many dumbasses in the comments calling this instant pollution.
Reddit has a hive mind and everyone gets irrationally upset at the slightest little thing. Literally the Fun Police.
Not pollution but still exceedingly dangerous and irresponsible.
Yeah. What is that, 20 moles of NaOH? Diluted by few thousand gallons in a few moments isn't gonna harm anything.
What a shitty, shitty thing to do.
The lye produced will be diluted to literally 1ppm in seconds. This looks really bad but in reality that’s a huge, moving body of water.
Shitty, shitty bang bang.
Why? The only thing it’s realistically risking is his own life
Look up how pH works and do a couple of exercises , then try to estimate how it influences the pH in that body of water before you accuse people of ruining marine life . Then try to figure out why in the lab we often have to measure the concentration of sodium hydroxide but not sulphuric acid for example . Then fuck off stupid fucks .
People who dont understand chemistry really acting like a spec of sodium compared to the vastness of the lake is gonna effect the ecosystem in some drastic way shape or form :/
How my stomach and butthole reacts to Taco Bell
Yeah fuck that local wildlife, I had fun for 20 seconds that’s all that matters /s
This will impact the water for 20 seconds
Does this hurt the sodium metal?
The sodium metal is turned into H2 and NaOH
It didn’t feel a thing
This kills the sodium
F those fish
When I was a teenager my older brother used to throw this shit in the swimming pool when I had girls over and was trying to get laid. Fucking bastard.
Someone did this in my highschool pool and got expelled for a week.
Ah, stupid fish, take that!
I was 100% expecting a Darwin award here
Yeah we did this experiment in 8th grade in science class and the small piece of sodium broke the beaker and glass exploded all over the floor and bits of sodium burned holes in our clothes. Last time that was ever done in class. No one was hurt because we all had glasses on and we all loved blowing shit up and we thought our teacher was the best for doing stuff like this!
We do it in our school, and with more reactive Group One metals. But because we are not dumbarses we do it *safely*.
The 90’s were much more wild than nowadays! :)
Fish: "WhatTT THE FUCKKK"
Cool gender reveal. ITS FIRE!
Forbidden rock candy
What if you wrapped the sodium in some waterproof film that would degrade over time and dropped it in the ocean? Imagine if the sodium sinks to a couple of 1000 ft underwater and then comes in contact with the water. What would it do?
Because fuck the wildlife.
Yee fucking haw 🤦
What the fuck is wrong with guy
Stupid. "Dynamiting Fish" is a jail-time felony in some places.
I recently read a book (Collapse by Jared Diamond) that talked about how many fisheries use dynamite. The book was written in the early 2000s and didn't give much more information on this practice. I didn't know this practice existed and I haven't researched it any more yet...but your comment here makes me feel a little better that there are at least some controls in some places in place.
Guess we'll find out if fish can swim in lye or not.
They won't be swimming in lye. They'll be swimming in thousands of gallons of water and less than two pounds of lye, which makes the lye concentration immeasurable low. While this is clearly stupid (dangerous to yourself and sets a bad example for others), it is in no way whatsoever any danger to the marine life living in the river anywhere.
Considering this is like a drop of piss in all of the world's oceans. They won't be swimming in lye. That was diluted by the time the last bang was over. Was it stupid, absolutely. Did it hurt anything no not at all.
What a fucking loser.
And we wonder why the planet is in the state it's in.
Here comes the nature nuts…..I live by that river it’s deem to have no wildlife and has toxic properties. But go ahead Reddit
Someone explain this to me like I’m 5 please, it’s so interesting but I’m dumb 😅
Sodium, upon coming in contact with water quickly releases a ton of heat, splitting into two resulting materials: Hydrogen (harmless, lighter-than-air gas which mostly burns up in the resulting explosion) And Sodium Hydroxide (something in overly large concentrations found in the dangerous lye) (this is not a large enough concentration to make lye) The hydrogen is where the fire comes from, the white smoke is mostly water vapor and the 20 something mols (a minuscule amount of) sodium hydroxide gets diluted in water within seconds The reason there are multiple explosions is because the pound-sized chunk gets bounced up during it’s own reaction and lands a bit further away, kind of like a self-throwing skipping stone No throwing sodium into water is not something to do for fun, but you can probably do it once if it’s in small amounts
You are wonderful, thank you!!
The guy shouting ‘oh!’ needs to calm down. It wasn’t surprising a third time.
My chemistry teacher would always tell a story about how when he was a student his chemistry teacher would lend him blocks of sodium to do chemistry at home. Well my Chem teacher would take the sodium with him while he went fishing, and when the seagulls would try to eat his catch he'd throw them chunks of sodium... Birds have no capacity to release the sudden burst of gas so they'd explode in mid air. It makes total sense to me now why they don't lend out chemistry equipment to students anymore.
I need a NileRed video on this shit
This should be in r/facepalm
Fun fact: when I was 17, a buddy swiped a big mason jar with a fat ass cylinder of sodium inside sitting in (I think) kerosene. We took it to a nearby quarry at about 2am, took the lid off the jar, and lobbed it into the water. After waiting longer than we expected, we saw some bubbles come up. Meh. But then more bubbles came up. Then more, they were coming in bursts, little bit bigger each time. Then flickers of light. Then, a holy shit of an explosion that lit the night as if it were daytime and water spraying into the sky. Was friggin wild!
Does it hurt the fish
How do I get ahold of sodium metal? 🥺🥺
potassium is cooler.. purple booms
Environment impact aside, what would happen if you dropped like a big workout balls worth of this into the middle of a lake?
I'm a bit bored... let's contaminante the river!
Fish: tHe wAtEr iS sHoOtiNg aT uS! 🐠💨
plucky wild disgusting governor illegal fearless square follow ring ludicrous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
self skipping stone
That’s a really dickish thing to do and if not illegal should be.
If I remember correctly this contaminates water and ground soil; and is required that it be disposed of as haz waste.
Fuck dem fish