Difference between revisions of "Talk:2373: Chemist Eggs"

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The Halloween reference could use an explanation. I don't live in the US (or wherever Halloween tradition lives), and connection to eggs is not clear to me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.152|162.158.183.152]] 08:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 
The Halloween reference could use an explanation. I don't live in the US (or wherever Halloween tradition lives), and connection to eggs is not clear to me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.152|162.158.183.152]] 08:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
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:Kids sometimes throw raw eggs at houses on Halloween just to annoy people. That is all. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.31|172.69.35.31]] 08:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Revision as of 08:37, 17 October 2020


Chemists get another solid pummeling from xkcd dot com. Also, double question marks, very Ryan North. Lightcaller (talk) 00:41, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

You could disguise the smell of your rotten eggs with selenophenol and thioacetones. Nobody will complain about your mere sulphides then... (ETA: I wonder about selenoacetones?)162.158.154.167 00:53, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Seperately, I recall the time when I was still at school and we'd made some compound that had produced the distinct smell of almonds. Mentioning this later to my father (a chemist himself) he was initially quite concerned before I clarified whatever-it-was as whatever it actually was and not an actual cyanogen compound. 141.101.107.82 01:03, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I always heave a mental sigh when I see some bit of safety literature informing me that natural gas smells like rotten eggs. First, as Randall points out, that's not a very useful explanation for most people. Second, it isn't the natural gas (i.e. methane) that has that odour, but the thiols that are added to it as a safety feature. BunsenH (talk) 02:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Pretty sure the current version explanation is wildly overthinking this - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a comic about how weird it is that we reference things smelling like rotten eggs when they’re uncommon is just that. 172.69.34.28 05:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Actually, sulphides (H2S in particular) smell more like farts that rotten eggs. But science teachers know that if they use the word "fart" in front of a class, there will be no more work done in that lesson, and probably none by that class.

The kids recognise the smell, of course. We used to call it "fartrogen dioxide". Paul Seed 07:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

There was a time, before refrigeration or stock rotation, when bad eggs were much more common. Hence the story of the Curate's egg [1], updated here [2]

The Halloween reference could use an explanation. I don't live in the US (or wherever Halloween tradition lives), and connection to eggs is not clear to me. 162.158.183.152 08:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Kids sometimes throw raw eggs at houses on Halloween just to annoy people. That is all. 172.69.35.31 08:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)