If you are thinking of doing something stupid always read the internet first to see if someone has done it first and what happened! Chemistry 121 While reading a textbook of chemistry, I came upon the statement "nitric acid acts upon copper." I was getting tired of reading such absurd stuff and I determined to see what this meant. Copper was more or less familiar to me, I could easily get my hands on it in the Chem. supply room. I had seen a bottle marked "nitric acid" on a table in the supply room, however I did not know its molarity, but I was getting on and likely to learn. The spirit of adventure was upon me. Having nitric acid and copper, I had only to learn what the words "act upon" meant. Then the statement, "nitric acid acts upon copper," would be something more than mere words.
All was still. In the interest of knowledge, I put one the thin copper disks on the table; opened the bottle marked "nitric acid;" poured some of the liquid on the copper; and prepared to make an observation.
But what was this wonderful thing which I beheld? The copper disks was already changed, and it was no small change either. A greenish-blue liquid foamed and fumed over the copper and over the table. The air in the small room of the performance became dark red. A great coloured cloud arose. This was disagreeable and suffocating - how should I stop this? I tried to get rid of the objectionable mess by picking it up and throwing into a fume hood, which I had meanwhile opened. I learned another fact -nitric acid not only acts upon copper but it acts upon fingers. The pain led to another unpremeditated experiment. I drew my fingers across my lab coat and another fact was discovered. Nitric acid also acts upon cotton. Taking everything into consideration, that was the most impressive experiment, and, relatively, probably the most costly experiment I have ever performed. Plainly the only way to learn about it was to see its results, to experiment.
