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posted by [identity profile] surakofb5.livejournal.com at 02:31am on 18/01/2007
That reminds me of the story that appeared on the humor page of one of my chemistry magazines. No idea if it was true.

Guy goes to the post office to ship an *empty* dewar. "What's a dewar?" "You use it to hold liquid nitrogen." "You can't ship pressurized gases! It'll explode!" "It can't explode. Look, there's not even a lid." "What if it leaks?" (poor scientist sighs) "How clever of you to think of that. Fortunately, it's full of packing peanuts. Everyone knows peanuts are legumes, and legumes fix nitrogen, so it can't leak." "Oh, why didn't you say so?"
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shipping nitrogen

posted by [identity profile] rfunk.livejournal.com at 03:04am on 18/01/2007
I can certainly believe at least half of that story is true. But why wouldn't the guy just say it's not pressurized? (Probable answer: Saw a more fun, and possibly easier, way out.)
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Re: shipping nitrogen

posted by [identity profile] surakofb5.livejournal.com at 04:36am on 18/01/2007
I think you're giving the shipping clerk too much credit. The guy heard that it was a gas and simply mentally turned to "Regulation #nnn: we don't ship gases". Plus, of course, the dewar was *empty*. I've missed a few lines of the story because it's in my cube at work, so I've forgotten details.
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Re: shipping nitrogen

posted by [identity profile] surakofb5.livejournal.com at 11:12pm on 19/01/2007
Found the link to the original story:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/tcaw/12/i08/pdf/803lighter.pdf
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