Drink of Death
Science brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it.
Gerta's husband left her for another woman, so she decided to make a lethal mixture to take her life. Attempting to make it as powerful as possible, she mixed sodium hydroxide with hydrochloric acid. She quaffed her cocktail of death, but nothing happened. Why?
Answer
Sodium hydroxide is a base and hydrochloric acid is an acid. When she mixed them together, they cancelled each other out. If she had taken either of them separately, she would have died. Together, she was drinking salt water.
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Comments
Katelin   
Nov 30, 2003
| Great thinking! I completely forgot that sodium hydroxide was a base. |
Katelin
Nov 30, 2003
| Great thinking! I completely forgot that sodium hydroxide was a base. |
Katelin
Nov 30, 2003
| oops sorry about that |
jimbo 
Dec 01, 2003
| I guess she must have mixed equal volumes of equivalent molarity solutions. Lucky!  |
Gizzer
Dec 03, 2003
| Drink enough salt water, and it will kill you. |
marrianna
Dec 03, 2003
| Got it!  |
zpivat
Dec 17, 2003
| NaOH + HCl --> NaCl + H2O
mmmm, salt water eh....bad for ur blood pressure.....lol |
zpivat
Dec 17, 2003
| NaOH + HCl --> NaCl + H2O
mmmm, salt water eh....bad for ur blood pressure.....lol |
curtiss82
Dec 24, 2003
| This is way too easy. |
kelbar
Dec 26, 2003
| state the obvious,simple chemistry!
|
Palsha
Feb 13, 2004
| Not to be too pickey (even though I still liked it) but they technically didn't cancel each other out in the sense your thinking. The base added acted as a buffer which made the solution neutral. But I still love chemistry problems! |
bbngk
Feb 15, 2004
| i will drink to that |
quinton
Feb 19, 2004
| That Explains that you should be careful when you are doing chemistrty or that situation could happen maybe even a worse one ahh |
bookworm91
Nov 21, 2005
| i think it would have killed her. the taste of salt water alone is fatal!!!!! just joking. well, that was a good one! i liked it and i hope to hear more from you. |
cyberstar5150
Jul 19, 2006
| Basic chem... ::sigh:: And what if she screwed up and it wasn't an even mixture? She'd have her wish, then.  lol |
4demo
Dec 23, 2007
| Good thing I took Chemistry next year. Great teaser! |
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