Chemistry World Records

Mick Cullen replaced 105 lyrics with [chemical elements][1] in [R.E.M.][2]’s song “[It’s the End of the World][3]”. He performed the feat during a stop on the RecordSetter book tour. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemicalelement [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.E.M. [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It’stheEndoftheWorldasWeKnowIt(AndIFeelFine)

Yanhao Deng of Chenzhou, Hunan, filled a large test tube with pure oxygen in 1:25.09 in NoBook Lab, a virtual chemistry lab app, starting from an empty workbench. On a tablet, Yanhao drags in test tubes, an alcohol lamp, cotton wool, tubing and potassium permanganate, heats the reagent in a tilted tube and pipes the gas into a stoppered collecting tube until the air is pushed out and the readout lists oxygen alone, 1.767 millimoles of it. RecordSetter matched the phone video of the tablet and a smartwatch stopwatch with the tablet's own screen recording: the tube is unhooked from all tubing when the stopwatch stops at 01:25.09, and its readout still shows only oxygen several seconds later. Chemistry class at speedrun pace.

Yanhao Deng of Chenzhou, Hunan, made 1.428 moles of solid sodium chloride, about 83 grams of table salt, in three minutes in NoBook Lab, a virtual chemistry lab app, starting from an empty workbench. On a tablet, Yanhao sets out a 1,000 mL beaker, tweezers, sodium metal and concentrated hydrochloric acid, reacts the sodium in the acid and tips the white salt into a test tube in two batches; the tube's readout lists sodium chloride with small amounts of five other substances and no liquid. RecordSetter matched a phone video of the tablet and a smartwatch stopwatch with the tablet's own screen recording: the tube reaches 1.428 moles at 2:56 on the stopwatch and still reads 1.428 as the stopwatch passes 3:00. Table salt, the hard way.