• Question: what is your favourite chamical?

    Asked by ash633 to Ant, Dan, Matt, Mike, Steph on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Matt Maddock

      Matt Maddock answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Tough question! There are a lot of cool ones, but I guess the coolest one that I really know anything about is water.

      Really – just because it’s everywhere, it’s easy to assume that it’s rather dull, but it’s actually really odd stuff. For example, almost everything is denser (heavier) as a solid than as a liquid, but not water; that’s why ice-bergs float and rivers freeze from the surface downwards.

      …but then Nitrogen is excellent when it’s a liquid…and Hydrogen, where the atoms are so small they actually fall through metal…and stuff that explodes is always fun…

      I think I failed this question – there are too many cool chemicals!

    • Photo: Stephanie Tomlinson

      Stephanie Tomlinson answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      N2O beacuse it makes me laugh.

    • Photo: Dan Veal

      Dan Veal answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I like the ethanol in our lab. It’s like a type of rubbing alcohol (definitely NOT something to drink as it smells foul) we use to clean tables, and lenses, etc. It evaporates right away so once you clean something, it’s dry immediately.

    • Photo: Anthony Hollingsworth

      Anthony Hollingsworth answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      gold! it looks great and its fun to hold. its a bit expensive though. I also like francium because it explodes if you get it wet

    • Photo: Mike Salter

      Mike Salter answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Potassium permanganate – mainly coz it’s a nice purple colour

Comments