Chemical Magic

by Leonard A. Ford

Book Overview

Classic guide provides intriguing entertainment while elucidating sound scientific principles, with more than 100 unusual stunts: cold fire, dust explosions, a nylon rope trick, a disappearing beaker, much more.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486676285
• ISBN13: 9780486676289
• Release Date: July 1993
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent ! The first one for many chemists.

Excellent book !. For many chemistry students it has been the first book in order to see chemistry as a beautiful and funny science. Dr. L. A. Ford is no longer living but this masterpiece will remain for many years as an element for motivation in teaching and learning chemistry.

Ford's Chemical Magic: When Science Was Fun

This is truly a great and extremely fun book, especially for the curious kid or adult who wants to do exciting stuff with chemicals and glassware. I did every experiment in this book as a kid, some dozens of times, but recommend adult supervision for some of the experiments. In today's dummied down, Lawyer stiffled society it's nice to know that there are actually still books around that have experiments that are as fun as they are politically incorrect. All kids should be exposed to the fun of making fireworks, playing with mineral acids and white phosphorus, oxidizers, and burning metals if they can find the materials and if they have appropriate supervision. It's the real way to become introduced to non watered-down chemistry; this book has the really FUN experiments that will, unlike almost all of the prevailing experimemts in the prevailing contemporary books, keep kids from thinking that science is a complete bore. (Tri ess Sciences in Glendale, CA sells a lot of these reagents to adults). This is a book from an exciting past era, long gone now, where there was a lot of real freedom to really experiment and learn in an environment free of hyper-legal and trumped up anti chemical sentiment. Get it and you'll see, but be careful with white phosphorus solutions of carbon disulfide. When the boring books on chemistry are replaced by great books like this, people will return to science. Have fun.

A great book! Great ideas for science projects.

This book is a great book for young scientists. As noted by some of the other reviews, the bandwidth of maturity required for the experiments varies greatly. Many of the projects or experiments in the book are a bit more than the average person can handle. But even then, reading about them does teach you something. I remember reading the first edition of this book when I was young. I had SO much fun with it and I just kept signing it out of the library. When I got older, I did look for it, but it was out of print. Then the second edition came out. Woo hoo!! I got myself a copy and one for a nephew who is showing great promise in the sciences (even though he's only 11). You just can't go wrong with this book. It's written in an old style and is sometimes almost childish in its presentation, but even adults can enjoy many of the writings in the book.

from the good ole (less paranoid) days

This book describes chemical experiments that give visible andsurprising results suitable for stage demonstrations. Presented asrecipes with short descriptions of of underlying mechanisms (usually).What caught my eye was the number of classic demonstrations common inolder books but now largely dropped from children's texts as toodangerous in ingredients required, or fumes and energy relesed.Many of the recipes are about buring or blowing up things (Yeah! ;-)* sugar cube treasted with conc H2SO4 black thing* zinc based powder that emits green smoke when spat on (thanks for teaching me this one Max ;-) * colored fire powders* flour cannon (did not mention that old quaker oats tin useful here.)I am in favor of teaching children how to safely perform dangerousscience experiments, as this is the only way to learn to do suchthings properly, (since many will do them regardless) and anyway thekids would be up to more hazardous pursuits if the modest risks of thelaboaratory are denied. If today's young people do not learn how toplay with fire safely, where will we get tommorws homeland defensetechnologists to fight our nations Fovever War against religousfanatics?However I would not encourage experimemnts involving the burning ofmercury compounds (see the blue fire formula) and the use ofcarcinogenic, flamable or persistently toxic substances like CCl4 orfluid mercury anywhere but in a proper fireproof ventilation hood.The book does mark experiments involving toxic (like CCl4)sponateously combustible (white phosphorous!) and powwerful oxidizingagents (my fav: Potassium Clorate). Unfortunately the short length ofthe text did not permit a more detailed discussion of precausions onesould take with such materials, like eye protection, long fuses andelectrical igniter/detonators, and saftely practices like using verysmall quantities of reagents the first time, not permitting murcury tospill in places it could release fumes over time or form amalgams withother metals and never premixing oxidizers with combustables unlessone knows the combination is relatively stable in the environment inwhich the mixture will be stored.I reccomend this book as an antidote the boring...libability concious [material] present in most high school texts, butwould also require students doing these experimentr to read somedetailed laboratory procedures text, and practice these techinuqwes ina laboratory under experinced supervision. The most valuable lessonthen obtained is the attitude of cautious adventurousness that helps manyof us to have a joyful time in the lab while still retaining all tenfingers.

Excellent for science teachers

The activities in this book are not intended for home use; however, they work great as class demonstrations and/or student activities. There are a lot of excellent attention-grabbing results which, if not utilized as part of a core curriculum, certainly provide a memorable "hook" that can be used to teach essential National Science Education Standards topics.