Question: Have you ever blown something up that was massive and had a massive explosion?

Damian Bailey answered on 17 Jun 2013:

Yes and what a story that was!
I’m also qualified as a science teacher (basically because I love doing experiments!) and as part of my training I had to work in a super-posh private school which was great fun. It was my turn (as a student remember!) to organise the Chemistry practical and I thought that it would be a great opportunity to show the students how to measure what percentage of oxygen there is in the atmosphere (anyone out there know?). So, I took take a glass beaker turned upside down in a bowl of water with it partly dunked. You mark the line where the water climbs up inside the beaker. All the students were sitting in the front row with goggles on looking very serious and studious indeed! Then (and here’s the funny bit!), I took some white phosphorous out of a beaker of water (this stuff is seriously explosive!) and what I wanted to do was set it on fire in the beaker to show the water level fall (by just over 1/5th, the fraction of oxygen that you and I are breathing in right now!). OK, so I was explaining this to the students holding the phosphorous when “BOOM”; the stuff ignited and there was a blinding flash of light. I jumped and the whole set-up came smashing to the floor, drenching the front row! I took off my goggles to find that I had lost both my eyebrows! So I then spent the rest of my time teaching in that school with no eyebrows, looking like an alien from Mars! The students thought it was superb though didn’t really get to learn much science!