Friday, November 7, 2014

Rotovaps are like heroin for Hollywood

Of course, it's not being used as an actual rotary evaporator. (Still from "Big Hero 6")


They can't help but abuse them. (Off the top of my head, there's Rotovap Abuse in the very forgettable Formula 51 and in an early episode of "Fringe", as I recall?)

In all honesty, I love the enthusiasm of the chemist in this clip (starts at 1:25), if not the adherence to PPE. And it is quite clear that the animators were given access to an actual, physical laboratory. 

7 comments:

  1. I would not want to see a rotovap filled with light blue vapors. The most likely scenario is that someone just put his ozonization reaction on it, without quenching it...

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  2. I still want to see this one, even if they get the rotovap wrong.

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  3. How is the collection flask being held on without a clamp? The only reason which comes to mind would be if there were a vacuum inside the rotavap, which somewhat contradicts the presence of the blue vapors inside....

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  4. Stand back I'm about to do science!

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  5. This peeves me almost as much as every surface in a lab covered with Erlenmeyer and volumetric flasks full of colored liquids. Ack!!! However, it is only on the screen for a few seconds.

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  6. See Arr Oh writes in to say:

    RE: Fringe - If I recall, Walter (the basement-dwelling Harvardite) was having his son Peter brew up some test molecules, using the (*cough*) rotovap cold-finger as a reaction vessel.

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  7. Subtle rotovap abuse in the Oct. 16, 2014 edition of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20