I began my senior high school year with some degree of "scientific" hubris. I had completed the previous three years' science courses with good grades and expected to do so with senior physics. I had done a lot of private "experimenting" with small scale rockets and explosives and developed my own hand grenade. But perhaps my most amazing accomplishment during this period was simply staying alive.
During my sophomore and junior years my obsession with explosives escalated beyond low-grade combustion explosives, like gunpowder, and led me to research high explosives, like TNT and nitroglycerin. Fortunately, there was no internet in those days and my "research" was pretty much limited to a well-worn set of encyclopedias at the end of the large "Study Hall" room in the old high school building on Cherry Street. That building is now known as Swanton's "Middle School".
At any rate, those encyclopedias did contain limited discussions of high explosives and very brief descriptions of how they were made. These descriptions gave no critical details of the complex manufacturing process, but simply indicated that various organic compounds (toluene, cotton, glycerin) were "treated" with a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. These treatments would then react with the compounds and turn them into the high explosive (TNT, guncotton, Nitro). The encyclopedia DID say that the reactions had to be slowed down by a supercooling process in order to maintain a safe temperature. If the temperature of the reaction rose above a certain critical level, the reaction could race out of control and result in a disastrous explosion.
Well, Gentle Reader, you have probably guessed that this very limited information and dire warning was not enough to deter the teenage Sudzy from trying his hand (and body!) at making nitroglycerin! On at least three or four different occasions during my latter sophomore and junior years, I very secretively attempted in my rear garage laboratory to generate a small amount of "nitro".
The only supercooling mechanism I could think of was a crude double beaker system with a below freezing salt-brine solution in the large outer beaker and a small beaker set inside it containing the nitric-sulfuric acid mixture. In retrospect, I think the word "crude" was the overall defining characteristic of just about everything I attempted in those days! I then slowly poured a small amount of glycerin into the acid mixture in the inner beaker while gently stirring it with a glass rod. I had a small, clean eyedropper at hand with which I hoped to carefully suck up the pale yellow nitroglycerin that was supposed to rise to the top of the acid mixture when the reaction occurred.
Well, the reaction DID occur every time I tried it. And every single time my salt brine cooling method proved unable to control the reaction once it started. Despite the icy water in the larger outer beaker, the fluids in the inner beaker quickly escalated into a boil emitting volumes of noxious gas! Fortunately, that reaction only lasted for a few seconds while I sat there looking on in dismay. The fact that I was trying this stupid experiment using only a few cubic centimeters of glycerin was probably what saved my dumb ass! Any nitro that may have formed evaporated before a fatal quantity could accumulate.
As I ponder these past experiments, I cannot offer a single rational justification for such activities. I mean, what the heck would I have done with nitro if I had been successful in making it?! Probably something even stupider!
The only reasonable explanation I can suggest is that I had the typical teenage need to establish an identity for myself... and I had stumbled onto this "Whiz Kid" stereotype of a sensational nature that appealed to my ego. So in pursuing the Whiz Kid persona, I kept making ever more reckless choices. Obviously those choices didn't involve much consideration for my own safety or the devastating impact a 'mishap' could've had on my family.
The only creditable thing I can say for myself back then was that after a few failed attempts, I decided to back off reaching for the high explosive goal. After all, my Senior year in High School was just starting up.