On a slightly lighter note...

[redneckgaijin]

... starcat_jewel spotted this and posted it to Facebook...

... well, to explain, I know just barely enough about chemistry to know that, if you're an organic life form, there are few elements more dangerous to work with than fluorine. The stuff reacts with practically everything- even noble gases which aren't supposed to react with ANYTHING. It particularly loves to degrade organic compounds- and usually does so with a massive release of energy, or in other words a big fire and/or explosion.

But apparently there are fluorides, and then there are fluorides...

And yes, what happens next is just what you think happens: you run a mixture of oxygen and fluorine through a 700-degree-heating block. "Oh, no you don't," is the common reaction of most chemists to that proposal, ". . .not unless I'm at least a mile away, two miles if I'm downwind." This, folks, is the bracingly direct route to preparing dioxygen difluoride, often referred to in the literature by its evocative formula of FOOF.

And it only goes on from there, describing the utter insanity of producing, experimenting with, and even offering for sale one of the most useless, dangerous and deadly compounds ever devised by man.

And I used to think mixing bleach and drain cleaner was bad news... at least that only produces poison chlorine gas, not a fireball big enough to vaporize the whole chemistry lab.