Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How did you first come to this forum?

thesmug - 13-4-2014 at 20:31

FYI, I'm not posting this in whimsy because I want more people to be able to see it.

How did you come to this forum for the first time? You don't need to be super specific, just whatever describes it best. I'll start:

I was making ferrofluid and came across a post here concerning how to clean up those nasty iron stains. After making the ferrofluid I started thinking about expanding my chemistry practice and needed help thinking of which chemicals to get to fully stock my newly begun lab, and so made a post in beginnings asking exactly that. Two months and almost 31 days later and here I am (I'm still fairly new, as you can see).

elementcollector1 - 13-4-2014 at 20:34

I was searching for appropriate chemistry forums, after finding scienceforums.net a little too soft for my taste. Someone linked to a post here, and one thing led to another.

Zephyr - 13-4-2014 at 20:45

I found sciencemadness in a video about hydrazine sulfate preparation by nurdrage, and have been addicted to this amazing forum ever since.

Chemosynthesis - 13-4-2014 at 21:16

I used to be a mod on a big site with much less chemistry sophistication circa 2005. Lots of threads caused me to lurk here and back at roguesci. Eventually I got tired of the lack of sophistication elsewhere.

violet sin - 13-4-2014 at 21:32

tired of youtube, I think I was looking for a more scientific explanation on what ever copper electrochem I was doing and stumbled across SM. never looked back :)

numos - 13-4-2014 at 21:38

After asking chemistry questions on yahoo answers, then stabbing my eyes out (metaphorically) as to not see the horrendous responses that dare be called "answers" I looked for a more suitable source of information, this forum came up in the search "chemistry forum" and I decided it was perfect.

I've seen this forum before when searching various topics but YA ultimately caused me to look for something else.

Bert - 13-4-2014 at 22:51

Found it from Vulture's sig on roguesci.org about 11 years back, near as I can recall-

hyfalcon - 14-4-2014 at 05:22

I was searching google for information on anodes and found this huge thread here on SM. Been reading ever since.

neptunium - 14-4-2014 at 06:33

same here ! had an idea about making AlCl3 on google and BAM ! hundreds of matches popped up for scimad...
and found out that i wasnt the only weirdo amateur scientist!

[Edited on 14-4-2014 by neptunium]

Zyklon-A - 14-4-2014 at 07:01

I don't remember exactly, but it surly had to do with the lack of real science, or the idiots trolling on all the other forums/YouTube/Yahoo Answers.

neptunium - 14-4-2014 at 08:10

sciencemadness is great and i reefered it to people who dont know about it and might be interested ...
it only happened 2 or 3 times but at least one of them may have signed up recently !

Etaoin Shrdlu - 14-4-2014 at 09:47

I was trying to find an industrial supplier of gallic acid, ran across this thread, and bookmarked the site because I'd honestly never seen a forum for amateur chemistry before.

Texium - 15-4-2014 at 09:09

I first discovered it from doing various Google searches about various chemistry related information (I can't remember exactly what anymore, but most searches led me here) and found that it seems to be the best site out there for what I was looking for, especially when I decided to start my home lab for real. That's when I actually joined.

Praxichys - 15-4-2014 at 10:06

Tim's (SM name 12AX7) signature on ABYMC or Backyardmetalcasting.com somewhere around 2008.

Burner - 5-5-2014 at 16:58

I am in the US and several years ago I retired after a long career in R&D and decided to go back to OC and have some fun. What I did not realize was that the world had changed drastically over the years of my working life. The procurement of reagents that I took for granted were no longer available to individuals. While EBay provided some access to materials and much equipment, I was shocked to find that even getting high quality basic supplies like solvents, acids, bases, etc. that are essential in prepartive OC were unavailable from any source whatsoever. I now realize that it is the efforts of the DEA that many items that I have come to feel are indispensible in the lab (eg. I2 & LAH) are on some crazy "watched lists" and I have no hope of purchasing. That is when I realized (in the best tradition of early chemists) that I was responsible for making nearly everthing that I needed. That is when I stumbled across SM. I have been here several weeks and am reading voratiously. I am EXTREMELY impressed with the cleverness and quality of the science here and I hope that I can become a contributing memeber.

TheChemiKid - 5-5-2014 at 17:03

Quote: Originally posted by Pinkhippo11  
I found sciencemadness in a video about hydrazine sulfate preparation by nurdrage, and have been addicted to this amazing forum ever since.


Same! Thanks to nurdrage for leading us here.

AvBaeyer - 5-5-2014 at 19:24

Like Burner, I too am a retired organic/medicinal chemist after many years in R&D in the pharma business. I stumbled across this site a few years ago when I was doing some consulting work and one of the Google search answers pointed to this board. I was truly impressed that such a site existed and I was stimulated to once again get my hands dirty doing some synthetic organic chemistry and following up some old ideas I had. Like Burner, I found that acquisition of chemicals once taken for granted in industry is a real challenge. Ebay has been a great source but sometimes the quality is questionable. I have found myself working at the level of 1920's or 1930's chemistry. Great fun but often frustrating. (Sure wish I had "people" to wash my glassware!) Finally, I want to thank the keepers of this site for the fine collection of books in the library- a real godsend especially for the older books.

Burner - 6-5-2014 at 10:55

Quote: Originally posted by AvBaeyer  
Like Burner, I too am a retired organic/medicinal chemist after many years in R&D in the pharma business.


Ignore! (Are you in the US? Are you dealing with the same restrictions?)

Duh! I just saw that you posted your location.

[Edited on 7-5-2014 by Burner]

annaandherdad - 6-5-2014 at 13:11

Hi, Burner and AvB, like you I'm late in career, and doing chemistry just for fun. And like you, I've found how hard it is to obtain chemicals and supplies, compared to when I was a kid and you could just order 2 liters of nitric acid and they would deliver it to your door, no questions asked. AvB, I see you're in California. Where, may I ask? I'm in the bay area.

Burner - 6-5-2014 at 16:08

I feel that this is the biggest stumbling block for some of the younger chemists. I was trained to synth most of the materuals that I needed from simple organic starting materials using a series of fairly common laboratory reagents. But these common reagent building blocks are nearly impossible to source currently. I hope to learn from the scientific experiences chronicled here on SM how to get back to doing some OC.

AvBaeyer - 6-5-2014 at 19:21

annaandherdad,

I am in the Bay Area also.

AvB

aga - 7-5-2014 at 12:01

I was walking along, thinking of getting back into chemistry, not looking where i was going, then i just tripped and fell.

Now here i am in the SM website, vaguely wondering how to get out, but not really trying hard, as it's great in here.

Fantasma4500 - 8-5-2014 at 06:59

i really have no clue at all what it was that i was trying to get an answer on, but i remember that i tried to sign up +10 times and captcha just totally fucked me over, every single time
case sensitive or not, captcha has something personal against me

Eliteforum - 3-7-2014 at 01:00

I really don't remember! It was 12 years ago..

[Edited on 3-7-2014 by Eliteforum]

Artemus Gordon - 3-7-2014 at 18:12

I met hkparker when he was doing chem demos at Maker Faire, started watching his YouTube videos, and he posted a link to here.

Brain&Force - 3-7-2014 at 18:29

NurdRage and MrHomeScientist. But Explosionsandfire (Tdep) was a big factor as well.

The Volatile Chemist - 3-7-2014 at 19:59

I used to search for home chemistry sites, but there didt seem to be many. First I ran into The Home Scientistt's vids. and blog, and he reffered me here. When I checked it out, it semmed old, unused, and scetchy. Then I ran into Bromic's site, Tim's site, and Woelen's site. I e-mailed all three and we chatted for a while. They alll reccomended this site. I finally fell in wwhen I had a question about double salts vs. complexes, and didn't want to bother anyone by emailing them anymore. I probably was the most reluctant to join, but now this is my 400th post!

Tdep - 3-7-2014 at 22:09

I was doing a project on making sodium/potassium metal at home for my final year of highschool.

Thinking I would get just a small amount of research into this, I stumbled onto this site where there was pages and pages of speculation and photographs and research and I was blown away that there were so many people who weren't just speculating the possible but actually going out and testing it.

I had to stop the project for legal reasons (no one else had this issue with their projects, but I ran into legal issues on 4 separate ideas!) but i've been on this site ever since.

The Volatile Chemist - 5-7-2014 at 05:55

That's great Tdep. The resources here are amazing!

woelen - 5-7-2014 at 10:56

I was a member on a dutch chemistry forum (chemixtry.org) which now does not exist anymore (now we have amateurchemie.nl). One of the members from that forum was a member on sciencemadness as well (Taaie-Neuskoek) and he told me about sciencemadness. I checked out and since then (almost 10 years ago) I am an enthusiastic member of sciencemadness. Unfortunately Taaie-Neuskoek quit his hobby of home chemistry (he gave me quite a few of his chemicals) and also disappeared from the forums.

[Edited on 5-7-14 by woelen]

The Volatile Chemist - 5-7-2014 at 19:26

That's too bad. Did you know him personally?

woelen - 6-7-2014 at 10:25

I met him personally a few times. He did not have any problems, he just quit doing home chemistry.

arkoma - 6-7-2014 at 10:46

I was looking for info relating to a friend of mines schemes to electrolytically recover gold; got "sucked in" here, could give a damn about electrolytic gold now and eyeball every single plant i walk by now........

Since I joined, I've been blessed with tons of quality info, real lab gear, and a daggum new camera w00t w00t

prof_genius - 7-7-2014 at 03:39

I was browsing for chemistry info and found this forum, I new about this forum for months before I made an account.

Trevor9424 - 29-5-2016 at 16:38

I discovered that this forum existed after trying to research how to obtain hydrochloric and sulfuric acid without having to purchase it. After a week or two of digging through threads here, I decided to join.

diddi - 29-5-2016 at 17:14

I was googling chemistry of minerals, from memory... and curse you all, after rekindling my interest in the area I have spent bucket loads on glassware and new chems etc

j_sum1 - 29-5-2016 at 17:20

I blame MrHomeScientist. I found his YT channel looking for thermites. I was toying with the idea of building an element collection and had made a modest start. I had a couple of interactions on his blog and then read a link that took me here. Lurked for a month and then dived in (courtesy of some questions I had on a lanthanum product that I spotted OTC.)

Some 2000 posts later and I think I qualify as hooked. (And a whole lot more knowledgeable.)

aga - 30-5-2016 at 04:28

I was assigned to sciencemadness by the regional commander.

BromicAcid - 30-5-2016 at 06:23

Old, but gives you a glimpse of the old-timers:

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=86...

Sulaiman - 30-5-2016 at 07:14

My main hobby interest was electronics,
I was slowly designing/building a ssb amateur radio transceiver in a 19" rack,
so slowly that components were becoming obsolete during the build,
and the copper cladding of my plain double-sided copper clad boards was corroding,
so just over two years ago I did a bit of research on tin plating,
now I too am trapped here :)


I really should get around to tin plating those boards one day :)

[Edited on 30-5-2016 by Sulaiman]

100PercentChemistry - 30-5-2016 at 09:11

Saw someone on YouTube talking about it. Whenever I search xyz synthesis this comes up.

The Volatile Chemist - 3-6-2016 at 12:41

Interesting 'old timer' forum. Wish it was still so much a balls-to-the-walls forum. Perhaps the mods should take to kicking out people who don't contribute hard work. :) I'd be fine getting kicked out just to have a higher quality forum to read from...

karlos³ - 3-6-2016 at 13:19

For me, it was nearly identical to woelens coming, except that it was not "chemixtry.org", but instead for me it was one of the quality chemistry boards in my country, "lambdasyn.org", where someone was also a member here which made me come and check this forum out.
I was very impressed with it and did not build up the courage to post here(mainly because I thought my english will be bad for native speakers...) for over two years, but finally did it and never had any regrest :-)

Do not take this as an offense, but, how naive I had been, to think the ones who are only speaking english must be the most eloquent and well-articulated of all english speaking people :-D

The Volatile Chemist - 3-6-2016 at 13:25

Quote: Originally posted by karlos³  
For me, it was nearly identical to woelens coming, except that it was not "chemixtry.org", but instead for me it was one of the quality chemistry boards in my country, "lambdasyn.org", where someone was also a member here which made me come and check this forum out.
I was very impressed with it and did not build up the courage to post here(mainly because I thought my english will be bad for native speakers...) for over two years, but finally did it and never had any regrest :-)

Do not take this as an offense, but, how naive I had been, to think the ones who are only speaking english must be the most eloquent and well-articulated of all english speaking people :-D

Wow, that's quite the site. There are 5 German chem forums to every English one....makes me want to learn German more. That site is really nice. L-Arabinose from Acacia Gum?! Wow, great site.

aga - 3-6-2016 at 15:30

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  
I'd be fine getting kicked out just to have a higher quality forum to read from...

This forum would be Less without you.

You under-value yourself and your presence here.

Edit:

... and your future posts about your Chemistry exploits will certainly make for good reading.

[Edited on 3-6-2016 by aga]

APO - 3-6-2016 at 20:19

Back in 2012, when I was 12 LOL, I would ask NurdRage about certain reactions; he politely referred me here.

Isolation of alkali metals was one of the very first things that interested me a lot.

pepe - 5-6-2016 at 16:55

I honestly cant say when I found SM. In high school I was a terrible student of chemistry (something I look back on now with dissapointment) but around senior year I really developed my interest in it. This would be 2011. In my research I would often be referred here but didnt really get into the forum or keep it bookmarked until last year.

Its one of those sites that I have had a long relationship with but only really started being active on (not in the posting sense but more reading full threads and the like) for a short while.

To be honest I am kind of a forum junky. A good forum with intelligent people working towards something rather than detracting is one of the rarest most fantastic finds one can have. I have been a part of so many forums and a lot of them fail because people just want to shitpost. That is one thing I love about here is that you all have a good time but generally keep it on topic and not just posting nonsensical bs.

Sorry for the long post detailing my love of forums. I just really love this forum!

j_sum1 - 5-6-2016 at 17:00

Have you had a previous incarnation here pepe? You have a post count of 3.

Geocachmaster - 5-6-2016 at 17:18

I first discovered SM when I was looking for ways to make hydrochloric, sulfuric, and nitric acid, just for fun. I found some cool forums and SM became a goto for my basic chemistry questions. After a few months I decided to join so I could give my 2 cents. Then I forgot about it for a while and just today I started again.

[Edited on 6/6/2016 by Geocachmaster]

pepe - 5-6-2016 at 17:36

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1  
Have you had a previous incarnation here pepe? You have a post count of 3.


I did but I forgot the username and email. I hadnt posted from it much. It was probably from when I first found the site so its been years. Plus back then I didnt have any labware or anything "fun" so research was more my thing. I am usually content lurking but I have started wanting to get involved in discussion rather than just reading. Now that I have a small lab going I am definitely going to be more involved. Kinda disappointing I was too late to join in on the "Lab from 5 OTC items" challenge.

NEMO-Chemistry - 13-6-2016 at 10:55

Simple google of science forums, looked at a few but most were above my current knowledge, they also on the whole think all noob questions are homework ones.

Having read alot of the forum (especially the thrown out stuff :D), i wasnt too sure if a newbie would be made welcome or not. I like the fact a number of members share the same interests as me (crystals and plant chems) so far so good :D.

lexxaus - 16-6-2016 at 09:46

I cam here because my friend told me that here a lot of interesting people

aga - 16-6-2016 at 11:35

Disappointment is a terrible feeling ;)

Richard3050 - 17-6-2016 at 11:27

A chemistry youtuber mentioned the forum so I thought it would be interesting to check out.

moominjuice - 18-6-2016 at 16:38

I found this forum years ago, before my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. as weird as it might sound, finding science, focusing my attention on something other than all of the particulars of why my life sucked... helped more than the medication. this forum is a small but significant part of that... so i have a lot of love for this forum. i joined recently, during a particularly hard time in my life, and as such i haven't been a very vocal member, but my love of science has literally saved my life a few times. im suffering from depression quite bad at the moment so i dont comment much but i know that things will be good again soon and i will speak with manic excitement about my wonderful lab with people that can relate to that if nothing else.

moominjuice - 20-6-2016 at 15:26

sorry for bringing the mood down, im ok, really!
i hope i havent derailed the thread by being negative, it was supposed to be a positive message of a forum that really helped me :)

j_sum1 - 20-6-2016 at 15:44

I wouldn't assume that, moominjuice. If you look at the post dates you will see that this thread goes in fits and starts.

I for one am glad that you are gaining so much from lurking and reading. Sometimes as a more frequent poster it is easy to assume we are talking among ourselves and forget that there is a much wider non-posting readership.

charley1957 - 2-5-2017 at 18:20

I came here years ago after looking around for an amateur chemistry forum. I found that other place where all the moderators are so awful to everybody, so I looked a little harder and here I am. I've learned so much just by lurking, as most on here are so much smarter than me about most of this stuff, though I do LOVE chemistry and am in the lab regularly. There's just so much to learn here. Wonderful people too. Keep up all the good work of spreading citizen science far and wide!

JJay - 2-5-2017 at 19:20

I noticed that I was reading a lot of posts here and I wanted to discuss how to obtain some lime (which for some reason is hard to find in stores around here).

I am certainly not the most knowledgeable person on this forum and don't have the greatest lab. Nor do I do the most experiments, but I am pretty knowledgeable and have a decent lab for an amateur I think, and I do a lot of experiments.

Sigmatropic - 3-5-2017 at 05:51

I remember coming through here by following links from rougesci but did not join back then. After finding the fire without matches video on YT, I visited much more frequently and decided I need to contribute. As for contributing, I am barely getting off the ground.

TheNerdyFarmer - 3-5-2017 at 12:38

Pretty sure it was when I was doing research on how to make elemental phosphorous. That and the video of hydrazine sulfate that Nile Red did.

Charlemagne - 3-5-2017 at 17:25

Linked in r/chemistry