This is an old article, but it’s still very relevant. The June 2006 edition of Wired Magazine has this article detailing the rise and fall of the garage chemist: Don’t try This At Home (here it is all on one page, but without all the pretty pictures).
The reason you should read this:
Taking chemicals and lab equipment away from kids who love science is like taking crayons and paints away from a kid who may grow up to be an artist.
[Links and resources after the jump] This bit explains succinctly why I’m doing this blog:
Ironically, a shadow of suspicion is being cast over home chemistry at a time when the contributions of amateurs to the progress of science are highly regarded… Personal computers, digital cameras, and other consumer electronic devices are putting more accurate means of recording and measuring phenomena into the hands of home tinkerers than were available in high-end labs just a few years ago. The Internet is the ultimate enabling technology, allowing amateurs to collaborate with their counterparts at NASA and other organizations.
…
But the hands-on revival is leaving home chemists behind. While surplus lab equipment is available on eBay, chemicals are subject to the site’s filtering software, which tracks or blocks the sale of items tagged as hazardous by the US Postal Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. “There are very few commercial supply houses willing to sell chemicals to amateurs anymore because of this fear that we’re all criminals and terrorists,” Carlson says. “Ordinary folks no longer have access to the things they need to make real discoveries in chemistry.”
Anyone interested in the history of garage chemistry should peruse this article, not only for a sense of history, but for a good reading list:
- sciencemadness.org
- Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
- Practical Organic Chemistry, Julius B. Cohen, 1910 (courtesy of Internet Archive)
- Society for Amateur Scientists
- Readily Available Chemicals Project
And there are also a few fun experiments to be had (in a related sidebar):
- “lava”
- light carbohydrates on fire
- stink bombs
