Bretherick’s handbook

A chemist recently posted on Twitter that their flask had exploded. It was quite strange, they remarked, because the reaction was something they’d done before without incident. It was a reminder of how much of the chemistry we do is under kinetic control; we are often blissfully unaware of the yawning thermodynamic abyss that lies just a little beyond our standard reaction conditions. There monsters be.

Industrial chemist Leslie Bretherick spotted this in the early 1960s. After graduating from the University of Liverpool in 1946, he worked in the laboratories of May & Baker, then a leading British pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals firm. He seems to have suffered his first significant injury after spilling oleum on his leg, which left him with both a permanent scar and an enhanced respect for the materials with which he worked.