Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride (2010)

Not a Chemist but reminded me about this article: https://gizmodo.com/chlorine-trifluoride-the-chemical-that-s...

> Just to get the ball rolling, here’s a few of the more unusual things chlorine trifluoride is known to set fire to on contact: glass, sand, asbestos, rust, concrete, people, pyrex, cloth, and the dreams of children…

Derek Lowe also did chlorine trifluoride: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo....

He wrote that one too, heh: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...

It’s linked in the article

Knowing that rust can burn should make the joy of a few Linux maintainers.

That's a different article. The Gizmodo article has a byline of "Melissa" and apparently is originally from TodayIFoundOut.com.

So, might be "inspiration". I suspect "Melissa" did not "find out today" - chlorine trifluoride isn't exactly the stuff you discuss at your average dinner table.

You need a whole bunch of expertise to write about it. Gizmodo does not usually have this expertise, but its writers do usually recognize snappy writing that might go viral.

"It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers"

Makes me wonder if it could burn a fire elemental. :)

They seem to model any chemical damage as "acid" and fire elementals aren't immune to acid so I would be inclined to say it would.

This is a quote from "Ignition!" The particular quoted passage from that book is one of the highlights of the unique ironic tone the author used to describe real and dangerous chemical research.

The book firmly establishes its tone with the first two pictures at the front: a successful rocket engine test and the remaining rubble of the same test stand after a failed test.

Yeah, I suspect “Melissa” fed Lowe’s article to an LLM to get a quick article that’s sure to get views.

In 2015? 2 years before "Attention Is All You Need"?

Good point! I’ll be more careful before quick posting.

I suppose Derek's writing style is similar enough that it's easy to accidentally credit him for that line.

I have to wonder whether Clark's influence is a significant contributor to his writing style. It would be fun to ask him. They could, of course, have come to it independently.

Ah, I miss the days when this sort of soft plagiarism required a minimal level of effort and even some genuine research. It might even rise to the level of "acceptable" if she cited her sources more thoroughly. Sadly, as presented, her choice of both anecdotes and example materials makes it pretty clear that the author is mostly just rearranging Lowe's and Clark's words.