Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Learning from Others' Mistakes: Explosion at Texas Tech

Learning from Others' Mistakes: Explosion at Texas Tech

DDTea - 2-10-2010 at 21:49

I came across a very interesting news article a little while ago:

Texas Tech Lessons

Quote:

On Jan. 7, 2010, Texas Tech University (TTU) graduate student Preston Brown was working with another graduate student to synthesize and characterize an energetic material, most likely nickel hydrazine perchlorate. Despite being told by their adviser, chemistry professor Louisa J. Hope-Weeks, to make no more than 100 mg of the material, the students synthesized 10 g.

They then divided up the product: Brown took half to prepare the sample to run characterization tests, and the other student took half for solubility studies. Because the product was lumpy, Brown placed his portion into a mortar. He believed that the compound was safe when “wet,” so he added some hexane and—wearing safety goggles but working at a bench in the middle of the lab, with no blast shield—“very gently, very, very gently” used a pestle to try to break up the chunks, Brown told TTU environmental health and safety (EH&S) officers, according to an interview transcript.

When Brown thought he was done, he set down the mortar and took off his goggles. Then he decided to give the compound one last stir. The mortar exploded in Brown’s hands. Brown “lost three digits on his left hand, severely lacerated his right hand, perforated his left eye, scratched his right eye and had superficial cuts to the parts of his body that were exposed,” says an investigation report prepared by Randy Nix, TTU’s EH&S director. The other student was not injured.

There's a lot of good information in this article regarding laboratory techniques with novel, uncharacterized energetic materials and it's worth a read just for them.

For example, in regard to transporting energetic materials:

Quote:

For quantities greater than 10 mg, samples must be packaged inside an ammunition can, with additional specifications for quantities between 300 mg and 2 g. People transporting explosives must have training to handle the materials and must hand-carry the containers or place them in a government vehicle...

Ammo cans are readily available and pretty cheap, so it could be a piss-easy and dirt-cheap way to add that extra level of safety to your work.

I really like the recommendation about researchers peer-reviewing proposed procedures.

the Z man - 3-10-2010 at 06:38

Isn't nickel hydrazine perchlorate that stuff that detonates even dispersed under water? Maybe they should have listened to the professor...
Anyway I don't think goggles wuold have helped much with 10g of HE shooting mortar's fragments at you.

bbartlog - 3-10-2010 at 06:45

I think this was already posted here somewhere, though a couple of searches don't turn it up.

Quote:

I really like the recommendation about researchers peer-reviewing proposed procedures.

I don't. If you read the article, the problem more or less is that no one gave enough of a damn to stop this guy. Given that he had already ignored *explicit instructions* as to how much of this stuff he should make, as well as various other rules and regulations, how would another bit of regulatory frippery have helped? He could have gotten approval to make 200mg of the stuff and then made 10g anyway, while wasting additional hours of everyone's time in the review process; and also (importantly) creating a false sense that controls were in place to make everything safe.
In my opinion it is a sign of systemic failure that no heads rolled over this. When responsibility becomes so diffuse that you can have an accident of this nature and not have someone fired within a few weeks, then of course everyone's incentive is just to go along and get along, perhaps while not working too close to the crazy guy with the gram quantities of perchlorates. Why is the guy being allowed to finish his dissertation? Why does his adviser still have a job (tenure I guess...)? Why does the internal investigation impute failures to entities like 'the chemistry department' rather than specific individuals? When the issue is that someone is allowed to flout rules and common sense, adding another set of rules is not a good response.

Chainhit222 - 3-10-2010 at 08:10

I think he was just dumb for making 10g of a primary explosive.

Rosco Bodine - 3-10-2010 at 08:27

Darwin Award contestant stories abound too sadly even for what ought to be intelligent and educated people who have an inexplicable talent sometimes for doing the damnedest most stupidass things. And this particular truth is stranger than fiction / believe it or not / "genius at work" story has already and recently been posted in this forum.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=1778&a...

Furthermore if anyone doubts that even supposedly intelligent and educated people somehow rarely do stupidass things in full public view, including trying to defend and even redefine reality when called to account of themselves, then to fully establish the truth of this matter all anyone needs to do is to give a bit of time to reading the text of some of the laws and regulations and judicial decisions which have been inflicted upon humanity by its illustrious leaders whom we should not seek to emulate by any similar stupidity of our own.

Common sense is something that no diploma even a doctorate conveys, a person is either born with common sense or they simply don't have it. Indeed life is filled with measured risks and ambiguity, but for the past six years or so in particular there seems to be a curiously intensified strain of dysgenic stupidity and devolution which has expressed itself in disturbing ways as if some kind of inbreeding had taken its toll on the "royals" who would be at the the top of the social order, and the world has suffered for it. Some new blood is needed and that "herd" of specimens which presently exists needs to be culled.

DDTea - 3-10-2010 at 13:25

I guess I didn't make the point of this thread clear

I don't really care about this incident in particular. I thought this article had good suggestions for anyone who likes to work with explosive materials, including people on this forum.

There are general suggestions for procedures, storage, and transportation of novel explosive compounds, and I thought they might be useful to people here.

For example, I see posts on this forum along the lines of, "Is this synthesis safe?" Maybe, but safety also depends a lot on the operator's technique and there are countless variables that can be introduced by that alone. I think good responses to such posts would include suggestions for safe work. It looks like the *best* suggestion in this particular article was to keep quantities below 100 mg if the goal is just characterization, and then to scale up *slowly* once one is familiar. That is to say, starting off making gram quantities of an unknown explosive material can be asking for trouble.

[Edited on 10-3-10 by DDTea]

psychokinetic - 3-10-2010 at 16:53

It's a shame he didn't lose his testicles.

Not following explicit instructions when dealing with dangerous things? That's a Darwin.

entropy51 - 3-10-2010 at 17:20

Quote: Originally posted by psychokinetic

It's a shame he didn't lose his testicles.

Not following explicit instructions when dealing with dangerous things? That's a Darwin.

Harsh! But he's in very good company. Davy, Faraday, Gay-Lussac, Bunsen, Mossain ......

I suppose I'm a little surprised that the lab in question even allowed the presence of a mortar and pestle.

Engager - 3-10-2010 at 23:49

Actually this kind of error is common, especially with amateur chemists. Many people consider wet explosives to be safe and many of those actually are, but many other sensitive materials exist witch can explode even underwater (Examples: lead and silver azides, 5-nitrotetrazolates) some can explode then wet (Examples: PETN, acetone peroxide and others). One should consider that moisture only decreases sensitivity it does not render material harmless. One good example i've heard personally was about one student from my university, who taken a batch of sodium azide from the lab and made some copper azide at home. Prep was successful and he was filtered it, considering it to be harmless then wet. Then he was placing material for drying he decided to look for crystal shape and taken small crystal by his arm attempting to examine it by close view, crystal was brittle and broken from his fingers and particles produced by explosion initiated whole batch of material laying on table below. Violent explosion torn away two fingers.

Rosco Bodine - 4-10-2010 at 13:24

On a scale of 1 to 10 for stupid, manually grinding a primary explosive using a mortar and pestle is an 11. Now on exactly what planet are such people as would "think" that such a thing is okay to do ? Earth is the planet on which I reside, and in several decades of reading about various accidents, the scenario described is about as stupid a thing as I have ever read about.

A "graduate student" reportedly did this ? Find out from what school was that graduation and seriously review the accreditation for that institution, maybe evaluate its prospects for conversion into an insane asylum.

The WiZard is In - 4-10-2010 at 13:53

Quote: Originally posted by Rosco Bodine

On a scale of 1 to 10 for stupid, manually grinding a primary explosive using a mortar and pestle is an 11. Now on exactly what planet are such people as would "think" that such a thing is okay to do ? Earth is the planet on which I reside, and in several decades of reading about various accidents, the scenario described is about as stupid a thing as I have ever read about.

A "graduate student" reportedly did this ? Find out from what school was that graduation and seriously review the accreditation for that institution, maybe evaluate its prospects for conversion into an insane asylum.

Someone even started a thread on this! "The Deadly Mortar and
Pestle". Granted he was criticized for posting what some
considered useless information because they could of
fond it via. Google had they wanted too.

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=13...

DDTea - 4-10-2010 at 14:37

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In

Quote: Originally posted by Rosco Bodine

You're still aren't understanding why I started this thread. I'm not starting a thread to say, "lulz this guy was a dumbass. Let's talk about that." I'm starting it because there was good commentary in this particular article about ways to work with uncharacterized explosives. Since there are members in the amateur science community who enjoy working with explosives, I thought that these suggestions might be useful to them and could get them thinking about ways to approach their hobby with more discipline and safety so that they can have longer careers.

So, let me list the suggestions from the article:

-Explosive materials should be stored in an explosion-proof safe.

Quote:

Energetic materials experts also say that peer review is common in labs synthesizing particularly dangerous materials. “The worker would write up the proposed reaction, and another approved worker would review the work with special emphasis on safety,” says James R. Stine, a former high-energy-explosives group leader at LANL who is now retired.

-If you're going to be working on a potentially hazardous protocol, why not run it by some members here on SM for second opinions?

-There were several references to blast shields. This is something that could probably be built. For protecting one's eyes, though, typical splash-resistant goggles won't cut it with explosives. I'd go for impact-resistant shooting glasses; some of those can stop a .22 round.

Quote:

"Under typical circumstances, 50 to 100 mg of a compound would be enough to fully characterize material with methods such as spark tests, flame tests, pressure hammer tests, and infrared spectroscopy, the police report says."

Quote:

"Even after researchers demonstrate proficiency, however, the first rule of handling energetic materials is to keep quantities low, says Michael A. Hiskey, who formerly synthesized explosives at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and now runs pyrotechnics company DMD Systems."

Really, for lab tests, there just isn't a need to synthesize huge batches of energetic materials. If you want to prepare large amounts so that you can set them off, then that's a different ballgame altogether.

[Edited on 10-4-10 by DDTea]

The WiZard is In - 4-10-2010 at 15:51

Quote: Originally posted by DDTea

[snip]

To summarizer a library of information on working with
energetic materials.....

"It is essential that persons having explosive
substances under their charge should never
lose sight of the conviction that, preventive
measures should always be prescribed
on the hypothesis of an explosion."

I am remiss in that I cannot bring to mind the source
of this quotation.

----
Byda stored in an explosion proof safe. Ahhhh
most use a magazine, which is not intended/required to be
explosion proof —

http://www.atf.gov/explosives/how-to/explosive-storage-requi...

for example.

The WiZard is In - 4-10-2010 at 16:02

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In

To summarize a library of information on working with
energetic materials.....

"It is essential that persons having explosive
substances under their charge should never
lose sight of the conviction that, preventive
measures should always be prescribed
on the hypothesis of an explosion."

I am remiss in that I cannot bring to mind the source
of this quotation.

Quote dobe from :—

EXPLOSIVES AND THEIR POWER.
TRANSLATED AND CONDENSED FROM THE FRENCH OF
M. BERTHELOT
By C. NAPIER HAKE, FELLOW OF THE INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY,
INSPECTOR OF EXPLOSIVES TO THE GOVERNMENT OF VICTORIA;
And WILLIAM MACNAB, FELLOW OF THE INSTITUTE OF
CHEMISTRY.
WITH A PREFACE BY LIEUT.-COLONEL J. P. CUNDILL, R.A., H.M.
INSPECTOR OF EXPLOSIVES.
1892

I own a photocopy you can DL yours from Google.com/books.

NB — This is not a how-to-do-it book.

Rosco Bodine - 4-10-2010 at 16:12

An overload protected bullshit detector is a good thing to have too, since the reading on its scale can be expected to be over ranging from time to time.

franklyn - 4-10-2010 at 17:19

Ever notice the palm prints next to the sign that say's " Wet Paint " ?
Just because you can read , doesn't mean you can retain.
" Look what happened to him " anecdotes do not convey good practice ,
neither does the BATF ( how many people do you know that stockpile tons ).
Bureaucratic measures in institutional settings which review each step before
permission is granted to proceed , work - in the Navy. This cannot supplant one's
own commitment to abide by a pre-flight checklist. Learning to fly without regard
for how to land , is the hallmark of someone suicidally reckless.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=13875#...
Two hundred years ago incidents of this kind are understandable given this
was then still the age of enlightenment and consequently ignorance abounded.
The salient observation I make in this thread elucidated by " The WiZard is In "
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=13875#...
is that 80 years later the very same lesson was being rediscovered in exactly
the same way. Flash forward to the present day and nothing has changed !

The Life of Reason : The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana ( 1905 )
Volume 1 Reason in Common Sense text page 284 , 2nd paragraph
" Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
http://books.google.com/books?id=O7WGAAAAIAAJ&dq=edition...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santayana

" An hour in the library sometimes saves hours and days of work in the lab,
but it can also save extremities."
good advice from Formatik
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=1778&a...

.

Safety mas

The WiZard is In - 5-10-2010 at 10:24

If the 1892 —

It is essential that persons having explosive
substances under their charge should never
lose sight of the conviction that, preventive
measures should always be prescribed
on the hypothesis of an explosion.

doesn't work for you I will supply the 2010 version —

Shit happens.

Reverting to my analogue mode I would suggest some
reading. This is not meant to be extensive - I just happen
to own these :—

Explosives, Propellants and Pyrotechnic Safety Covering
Laboratory, Pilot Plant, and Production Operations.
US Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, MA
NOLTR 61
ADA 272424
20 October 1961
[Free DL]

A Safe Practices Manual for the Manufacturing, Transportation
Storage and Use of Explosives
Prepared for National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
1978
PB-297827
[DL ? / NTIS $$]

DOE Explosives Safety Manual
DOE M 440 1-1A
9 January 1996
465 pages
[Free DL]

Think Big

RA Scott, Jr & LJ Doemery Eds.
Design Considerations for Toxic Chemical and Explosive Facilities
ACS Symposium 345
ACS 1987

T Yoshhida & et al
Safety of Reactive Chemicals and Pyrotechnics
Elsevier 1995

T Yoshida
Safety of Reactive Chemicals
Elsevier 1987

T Grewer
Thermal Hazards of Chemical Reactions
Elsevier 1994

And for what happens when things go seriously wrong.

Ralph Assheton, compiled by.
History of Explosions on Which the American Table of Distances
was Based, Including Other Explosions of Large Quantities of
Explosives
IME 1930

djh
----
An explosion may be defined as a loud noise
accompanied by the sudden going away of
things from the places where they were before.

Joseph Needham

Rosco Bodine - 5-10-2010 at 12:03

Anybody have the true statistics concerning how many traffic accidents occur where the driver at fault was a police officer ? How about the statistics involving fatalities attributable to one or another kinds of "human error" by a supposedly highly skilled and trained professional ? Maybe we should examine the statistics for accidents where the most responsible party was found to be the person acting in whatever responsiblity or role at the time of the incident was also as a practical matter functionally responsible and acting as the primary safety officer.

Shit happens. Indeed it does. Human beings fuck up with disturbing regularity.

Well regulated safety is the blue pill. It does however have its own toxic side effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VFDIKgm_QI

The WiZard is In - 5-10-2010 at 12:24

Quote: Originally posted by Rosco Bodine

Anybody have
the true statistics concerning how many traffic accidents occur
where the driver at fault was a police officer ? How about the
statistics involving fatalities attributable to one or another kinds of
"human error" by a supposedly highly skilled and trained
professional ? Maybe we should examine the statistics for
accidents where the most responsible party was found to be the
person acting in whatever responsiblity or role at the time of the
incident was also as a practical matter functionally responsible
and acting as the primary safety officer.

Shit happens. Indeed it does. Human beings fuck up with disturbing regularity.

Well regulated safety is the blue pill. It does however have its own toxic side effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VFDIKgm_QI

The majority of airplane crashes are attributed to pilot error.
That said - if you crash your plane/car/boat assuming you were
not on drugs/drinking you have a paperwork problem. If you
blow yourself up .... there is a good possibility of being
taken out in handcuffs. Then finding the authorities looking
where the sun don't shine with microscopes.

Reminds me of someone I knew who making a whistling titanium
rocket in his basement ignited it. Burning their hand — setting
5-pounds of black powder stored in the overhead alight —
bulging out the houses walls.

I rang him up in hospital ... Who called the police/fire department?
All my neighbours.

How are you getting along?
I am handcuffed to the bed.

Strangely their insurance company would not pay for the damage
to his house.

Ultimately he paid a fine.

Don't be knowing what their lawyer charged.

Rosco Bodine - 5-10-2010 at 12:51

Mr. Smith is such a scary fellow it seems to be the one constant theme .....

regardless of whether one chooses the red pill or the blue

franklyn - 5-10-2010 at 14:32

Quote: Originally posted by DDTea

" make no more than 100 mg "

It is a pronounced deviation to say

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In

" Think Big "

The first item cited has applicable advice.

Explosives, Propellants and Pyrotechnic Safety Covering
Laboratory, Pilot Plant, and Production Operations.
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD272424
redirects to :
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD272424&Locatio...

I'll tell you a secret, when you search databases by Accession Number be aware that
ADA272424 searched in http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/search/tr/index.html yields no record.
The same ADA272424 searched in http://www.ntis.gov/search/index.aspx
( where you would have to find it to order ) yields an entirely different publication.
It must be entered with a zero after the AD, thus : AD0272424
Search this substituted Accession Number AD0272424 in http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/search/tr/index.html
and it does yield the publication.
Searching the substituted Accession Number in http://www.ntis.gov/search/index.aspx
now yields no record.

.

The WiZard is In - 27-10-2011 at 10:29

US universities' lab safety under new scrutiny

24 October 2011

US universities are under pressure to significantly step up safety at chemistry labs, following new findings and recommendations from the Chemical Safety Board (CSB). The board, which is an independent government agency charged with investigating serious chemical accidents, is 'greatly concerned' about the frequency of academic lab incidents in the US and is calling for an overhaul.

The CSB's observations and recommendations are laid out in a recent case study report, which details a January 2010 lab accident at Texas Tech University (TTU) that led to a graduate student losing three fingers, perforating an eye and sustaining significant burns. The incident occurred when the grad student and a colleague were working with a new compound, a derivative of nickel hydrazine perchlorate, and it detonated when they were scaling up synthesis............>

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/October/24101101...

quicksilver - 27-10-2011 at 13:02

Hydrazine fumes can result in necrosis of the eye, so I wonder if the fellow was wearing goggles (maybe he was and he REALLY scaled up that synthesis!) - One of the things that's difficult is the level of specificity in reporting of this nature. If the individual has all his safety gear in place, that must have been a really serious bang to knock three fingers and loose an eye. It would almost seem like he held the sample up to view it further when it exploded.

Rosco Bodine - 27-10-2011 at 15:55

Lab smarts is a good way to keep from becoming lab dead just like street smarts is a good way to keep from becoming street dead, and so on with the continuum of scenarios where situational awareness improves mission survivability for mission members .....duh who woulda thunk it

I mean that sort of stuff is as basic as do you think persons who drive automobiles should first learn how to drive an automobile before being handed the keys and told hey anybody can do it, figure it out as you go ....now then, just go for it. Dittos for aircraft pilots.

What the world doesn't need is chainsaws with rubber blades being mandated, just because there was once a Texas chainsaw massacre.

We all don't come from Texas.

gutter_ca - 27-10-2011 at 16:06

CSB Video that deals with Texas Tech, UCLA, and a Dartmouth accident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALBWxGik64A

/cool story, bro

ETA: Woohoo! Hazard to Self!

[Edited on 10/28/2011 by gutter_ca]

quicksilver - 28-10-2011 at 06:04

I have frequently found the "reporting" less than adequate with incidents like these. I would imagine that there is something to be learned that was incidental, other than superficialities but I doubt we will ever know it.. I used to think that it was becasue the journalists were too unfamiliar with science but lately I've come to see that the story was geared toward the organization rather than the tragedy.
There are possibly several things that could be valuable to know from the the dynamics of the injury & one of the more serious issues are that we will never know them. Suppose the individual was well protected and the material was sensitized in some manner? The individual was not alone; why did he receive the "Lion's share" of the injuries? There could be some interesting elements to learn from that are obscured in this incident. If the object of reporting on an over sight committee was to publicize it's existence, shouldn't it's findings be part of the article?

gutter_ca - 28-10-2011 at 08:14

http://www.csb.gov/assets/document/CSB_Study_TTU_FINAL.pdf

PDF of TTU case study.

quicksilver - 28-10-2011 at 16:17

VERY VALUABLE material (thank you for posting it). Quoting:

"The graduate student did not receive any formal training
for working with energetic compounds, but he stated to the CSB that he independently completed
a literature review prior to beginning work to familiarize himself with similar energetic
compounds. Safety restrictions, such as a 100 milligram limit on the amount of compound
permitted to be synthesized, were verbally communicated by the two Principal Investigators
(PIs)6 of the research to some students. It was assumed senior graduate students would transmit
the information to newer group members; however, no formal documentation system was in
place to ensure that such information was effectively communicated to students and/or that
students understood the information. Consequently, none of the students the CSB interviewed
as part of its investigation, including those directly involved in the incident, stated they were
aware of a strict 100 milligram limit. Instead, students indicated to the CSB they believed they
should work with “very small amounts,” on the order of 200 to 300 milligrams."

The student then scaled up the material to TEN GRAMS and proceeded to attempt to reduce it in size by whetting (via hexane) and using a mortar and pestle.

"Based on experience, the two students had discovered that smaller amounts of the compound
would not ignite or explode on impact when wet with water or hexane, and they assumed
the hazards of larger quantities of NHP would be controlled in a similar manner.
After the scale-up, the more senior student observed clumps in the product, and believed
uniform particle size of the sample was important. As a result, he transferred about half of
the synthesized NHP into a mortar, added hexane, and then used a pestle to gently break
up the clumps. No formal hazard evaluation was conducted to analyze the effectiveness of using either water or hexane to mitigate the potential explosive hazards associated with the quantity of NHP synthesized the day of the incident. At this point, the graduate student
working on the clumps was wearing goggles, but removed them and walked away from the
mortar after he finished breaking the clumps. Several individuals from the lab indicated that
the decision to wear goggles was a personal choice which they based on how dangerous an
activity was perceived to be.
The more senior student working with NHP returned to the mortar but did not replace his goggles while he stirred the NHP “one more time.” At this point, the compound detonated."

EDIT:
I wish many people would read that PDF as it's food for thought on many levels. Not excluding some of the ways we loose the ability to have labs at our schools & universities.

[Edited on 30-10-2011 by quicksilver]

And one with H2O2 and Acetic Anhydride...

albqbrian - 3-11-2011 at 09:25

A chemist at Northwestern University was seriously injured.

http://cenblog.org/the-safety-zone/2011/01/explosion-from-aq...

Maybe all academic types who deal with these things need to go for a Day at Work kind of thing with folks who deal with explosives for a living. Maybe a few demos on sensitivity, radical ideas like shields, etc.

I was subbing at my kids school and watched a chem teacher demonstrate fractional distillation. He was using cyclohexane and some other HC. Heating with a bunsen burner he held in his hand. All the while closely surrounded by twenty kids! I was back in the far corner of the room watching in horror. Luckily nothing happened. The next day I brought this up to the head of the science dept. His answer was, well some of these old-timers (the heater had been at the school 15 yrs or so) do things a little differently than some of us are used to. No shit sherlock. The next year the head guy was gone and Mr. Bunsen Burner is still there.

Yes without chemistry life itself, and often death; would be impossible. Or something like that...

Know what you're doing before you do it

franklyn - 12-8-2012 at 10:07

Murphy's Laws
www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html
http://murphyslaws.net

" Nature , to be commanded , must be obeyed "
- Francis Bacon

" It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them "
- T.S. Eliot

The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Die Deister, die ich rief .... the spirits that I called...

The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Goethe (1797) is a classic German poem that begins
when a powerful sorcerer retires from his workshop tasking his young apprentice
with the chore of filling a large vat with water. The lazy apprentice, tired of fetching
water with a bucket , uses his master's magic and enchants a broom to complete
the task for him. When the broom comes alive and begins fetching the water the
apprentice is delighted ! Alas the boy is not fully trained in the magic he is attempting
to yield and the broom will not cease filling the vat with water even after it is full.
Before long the workshop is flooded and apprentice is unable to control the spell he
has cast. In desperation he takes an axe and splits the broom in two but this only
makes things worse. Now the two pieces of the broom come alive and begin fetching
water anew at twice the speed. The workshop is now overflowing and the apprentice
has no choice but to call his master for help. When all seems lost the Sorcerer appears
to call off the magic spell and the brooms fall lifeless to the floor. The Sorcerer's final
warning to the boy is that those untrained in the art of black magic risk great danger
by calling upon spirits they are not capable of controlling.

A sequence in the animated Disney film " Fantasia " depicts a hapless Mickey Mouse
as the sorcerer's apprentice.

<iframe sandbox width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XChxLGnIwCU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Oops ! I Did It Again
- Britney Spears

Lyrics
www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Oops-I-Did-It-Again-lyrics-B...

<iframe sandbox width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mvtDHH_IfP8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

She Blinded Me With Science
- Thomas Dolby

<iframe sandbox width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tBIps187MKk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

.

Wizzard - 12-8-2012 at 10:37

Franklyn- I can't tell if your post is on topic, or if it's spam.

franklyn - 13-8-2012 at 05:07

Wizard , I can't tell if your commentary results from
an idle uneventful day or you are just trolling.

Actually it's just a continuance of my previous observations here _
www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=14587#pid1891...
Mnemonic association goes a long way to instilling healthy safety
practice. O O P S for example can be rembered as the acronym
Oblivious Of Personal Safety

Its standard training doctrine in the military to link indoctrination in the
mind of the trainee with sex.

P.S.
You ought to get out more.

.

Wizzard - 13-8-2012 at 06:18

I realize that, Franklyn, and although "She Blinded me with Science" is a timeless piece (which I happen to enjoy), the Youtube music videos and analysis of the Sorcer's Apprentice story as useful information relevant to a ¾ year old thread is all I was bringing into question. Perhaps your post was incomplete? You did not mention 'OOPS" (which is a great acronym, I'd never heard it before) in the post, or the one from which your observations were being continued from, nearly 2 years ago.

Not a personal attack, my friend. I enjoy many of your posts, they are especially colorful and are sprinkled with good links.