Chem 4 Lectures (Freshman Year)

One of the strongest memories of my freshman year in 1956 was that of our Saturday morning chemistry lectures, in this building. Dr. Earl Serfass, the head of the chemistry department, gave these lectures to all incoming engineering students. I recall that he always introduced his lecture with intoned words: "This is Chem 4, lecture 5"... or whatever number it was.

Dr. Serfass usually had demonstrations that kept everyone awake and almost made you forget that it was Saturday. One of the largest and colorful explosions he created was made from iodine crystals. He finished the lecture by touching a pile of these nitrated crystals with a long bamboo pole which set off a tremendous bang, with copious amounts of purple smoke. Nitrated iodine is so sensitive to vibration that it is an explosive with almost no practical uses, except as a demo, and perhaps, in small amounts, for pranks.

Unbelieveably, during one of our later weekly laboratory sessions in this same course, jars of iodine crystals where left available to students on the lab tables! Obviously someone didn't think thru consequences :>) It wasn't long before there was a plethora of explosive pranks being carried out all over the campus. Finally the University had to publish an edict that anyone caught making this stuff would be expelled. This happened during my 1956-57 freshman year, in what we called at the time, the "chemistry building".

Jim Kadel
Class of 1960