A little science is a dangerous thing

I honestly can't remember how old I was, or how old my elder brother (who possibly should have known better) was, but it was old enough for me to have had some Physics lessons, and yet young enough to have a fairly new, small, stainless steel compass (one of the North-seeking ones, not a circle-drawing one) - quite possibly obtained after several hard months of saving up Bazooka Joe wrappers.

Anyway, for some reason our parents were out, but we were in, and bored; probably the holidays. I had the compass and was idly playing with it - a pretty limited operation in a suburban bedroom, I can tell you. My mind wandered, as it still seems to even today, with alarming regularity...

...where was I? Oh yes.

I remembered our physics teacher imparting the information that applying an alternating current across a magnetised piece of steel would reverse its polarity. This seemed like a plan and like a loon, my brother agreed. He had a desk lamp from which it was simple to liberate the chord: Presto! a plug with a lead sprouting a 'live' and 'neutral' wire; carefully we separated the wires - if they touched each other once we put the plug in, goodness knows what would happen!

Wires separated, plug in, compass in place on the floor near the socket...turn on the socket...carefully touch the wires to the stainless steel casing of the compass...

Result: a bright flash and a loud crack and all the lights and power in the house went out...imagine us sat on the floor with smoking hair standing out from our heads and blackened faces. But by God, the polarity of the compass DID change, yessir, we had a compass that pointed due South. It also had two wicked weld-scars on the casing - as did the two of us once our parents came home to find all the fuses in the house blown.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 15:00, 3 replies)

Hahaha
Genius - I had a similar experience, aged 8, with a metal fork, and a piece of bread that had become lodged in the toaster.

One blown fuse and sore arm later, and I was banned from using the toaster for 3 weeks. Learned my lesson, though - nowadays I use a wooden spoon...
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 17:01, closed)

Huh
Those cirlce drawing things are also called compasses?
(BrainSurgerysFun, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 0:39, closed)

a pair of compasses,
to be precise. No, I don't know why
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 1:39, closed)