A Voice from the Past

Today in MSE 2001 I learned how excited I can get from the words "sodium metal." Freshmen year, Ryan and I were fortunate enough to be in the same Chemistry class. Little did we know how fortunate we exactly were, until the day that our professor introduced the concept of extreme reactivity to water. So it turned out, much to our amusement, that some metals, the ones that are very electropositive (i.e. - sodium, calcium, lithium, potassium) are extremely and violently reactive with water and apparently after some research rubidium and cesium are even more so. Well after being turned down when we asked him if he could help us acquire some of these metals, our hopes were crushed. But today, when my professor awoke me from my light dozing with the words, "well, we don't use sodium metal very much...(fading into a very low voice)..because its dangerous...(even lower now)....and explosive." Needless to say, my heart smiled.