Well doesn't the term 'warlock' come from 'waer loga', having the connotations of a renegade? I seem to remember something like that, old english perhaps, it sounds like old english or celtic-influenced roots in the language anyhow. Or possibly gaelic? not sure, although old english feels closest to the mark.
And that does rather, so to speak, conjure up, the feeling in my lab. And its owner. Perhaps just a wee bit on the naughty side, but all the same, homely and friendly (of course many of the chemicals are not particularly friendly if misapplied or mistreated). But there is much more than wizardry to hobby chemistry (although plenty of us sure have come up with some real stunning magic in terms of applications of scientific principles to our projects, you might like (this isn't me) on youtube,the videos of 'nurdrage' and 'nile red' in particular. Nurdrage is bloody brilliant. Before his discovery of the use of 1,4-dioxane, conveniently made by distilling ethylene glycol antifreeze with concentrated sulfuric acid as a dehydration catalyst, to cyclize together two moles of the diol (glycol is the old but still widely used term for a diol, an alcohol having two -OH groups) into a ring structure with two oxygen atoms, one at each point connected to two carbons, which themselves form two-carbon bridges between the oxygens, for a 4-carbon ring bridged with 2 oxygen atoms, a cyclic ether of a high boiling point, for an ether at least of 101 'C (compare with dimethyl ether, the simplest, which is a cryogenic liquefied gas stored under pressure and evaporates at ambient temperature and pressure, boiling off rapidly, like butane does, diethyl ether the most common perhaps of the etherial solvents, boiling point somewhere in the 30s ('C) range, and the similarly (although somewhat higher) boiling THF (tetrahydrofuran) another cyclic ether solvent that unlike diethyl ether is miscible with water, but when perfectly dried, makes the perfect solvent for many reactions involving very, very strong bases that simply could not exist in an aqueous environment, and thus ideal for sensitive organometallic reactions like Grignard reactions. Got 2.5 liters of the stuff in my fridge atm:) Need to restock on diethyl and diisopropyl ether though, or buy some cheap alcohol (not drinking grade) and distill my own, using the same sulfuric acid dehydration technique to condense two molecules of ethanol with loss of H2O and forming an oxygen bridge between them, by dripping in fairly dry ethanol into 95-98% conc. sulfuric acid at a temperature of about 115 'C to 120 'C or so, not letting it go above 150 or else the result is further dehydration and elimination to the alkene, in this case ethylene (alkenes are hydrocarbons with one or more points of unsaturation (double bonds) or formation of the highly toxic diethyl sulfate, a powerful alkylating agent, and accordingly both mutagenic and very poisonous. Although very useful too) and distilling off the ether as it forms (there are other routes but this way allows for forgoing similarly toxic alkylating agents like methyl iodide, which are expensive to buy and expensive to make, what with the atomic weight of iodine being as high as it is, and again carcinogenic, mutagenic and poisonous, and it allows you to do it using concentrated sulfuric acid of dyed, drain-cleaner grade and still get clean ether from it, or dyed, bitrex-tainted antifreeze and still get dioxane)
And nurdrage came up with this brilliant way of doing something like a thermite reaction, using caustic alkali hydroxides, like sodium hydroxide/caustic soda (NaOH) with magnesium, to form a reactive, but cement-like slag aggregate, grinding it up in a blender then boiling it under dioxane, liberating the sodium metal, which just starts coalescing together in big rounded globules, bringing cheap, readily available sodium to the masses, where before many many hobby chemists couldn't or had difficulty buying it from chemical companies, and had to resort to electrolysis of molten caustic baths at very carefully controlled temperatures, or molten salt baths giving off lots of chlorine gas too which has to be kept away from the forming sodium (or it gets very violent very quickly, especially at the 800-odd degrees that it has to to keep salt molten, with lots of electrical resistance wire to heat it, and circuit design, building the cells to do it in and obtaining high temperature insulation that won't break down, plus vessels to perform the electrolysis in that will tolerate the likes of molten caustic soda, or not far off a thousand degrees of heat, electric currents and capturing the molten sodium (it is reactive enough when at room temperature but handlable. At 300 degrees, it'll explode half a second or so after contacting air and fly across the room in a jet of molten metal trailling behind and flames with a loud CRACK! noise and shower of sparks (for a blob about a third the size of a pea) whilst the hot, and violently oxidizing, reactive chlorine gas also has to have a use found for it, or else be neutralized at least before disposal if you can't find something to do with it (such as pump it through very hot but not quite boiling aqueous caustic soda or potassium hydroxide solution, forming the useful oxidizers sodium and potassium chlorate, respectively, or after cooling the Cl2 stream down first, into COLD hydroxide solution to give hypochlorites (sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl being what is commonly used in household bleaches, the kind poured down the bog that has that nasty sickly sweet stench to it) [for some reason I particularly loathe the smell of hypochlorite, its revolting, turns my stomach)
Nurdrage's method avoids the chlorine (unless you build a cell instead and do it with finicky electrolytic methods, although its always great fun to see people's DIY-ed electrolysis cells for various processes take shape and get built, since each is the pet of the chemist who built it, and its always entirely personal, unique, I kinda consider them a work of art as well as science, what with everything from hacked PC power supplies to flower-pots and steel pipes, all manner of coils and tubes and wires and circuitry. Its one of the things I've always thought shows off the individual's style in one of the best ways, the way it inherently puts the individual's own stamp on the process)
The nurdrage process obviates all the difficulties with electrolytic routes though and allows the work to be done in hours, rather than spending weeks or more likely months designing, buying parts for, building, begging, hacking parts for a cell. And even a 10-year old with the process written down on paper could do it, although of course working with dioxane they best pay attention to peroxidation tendency (storing over some sodium destroys them as they are formed though and keeps the ethers dry too) and to wearing a gas mask, since dioxane is carcinogenic somewhat. But still, even an NT kid could do it at that age.
