You remember the sodium demo from chemistry class: Just a small chunk of the pure metal dropped into water causes a great big flash and bang. You might even remember ...

Sodium and water don’t just react - they explode. In this slow-motion footage, every spark and burst is captured in detail.

Many of us gained our first appreciation for chemistry upon witnessing a high school teacher drop a chunk of sodium into a beakerful of water. You may think you know the explanation behind the ...

For decades, science enthusiasts have delighted at the famously energetic way sodium and potassium explode on contact with water. Researchers in Europe now show that the long-accepted explanation for ...

A high school friend once related the story about how his father, a chemist for an environmental waste concern, disposed of a problematic quantity of metallic sodium by dumping it into one of the more ...

Metals react differently. Some are very reactive and others are unreactive. Observations of reactions can be used to put metals into an order of reactivity. For example, copper is unreactive so it can ...