Featuring our own Robert Bruce Thompson, author of the
Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments (where you can
learn how to set up a home chemistry lab and keep your local
public officials on their toes): HOBBY CHEMISTS will tell you
that home labs have been the source of some of chemistry’s
greatest contributions. Charles Goodyear figured out how to
vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake
the family’s bread. Charles Martin Hall discovered the
economical electrochemical process for refining aluminum from
its ore in a woodshed laboratory near his family home. A plaque
outside Sir William Henry Perkin’s Cable Street residence in
London notes that the chemist “discovered the first aniline
dyestuff, March 1856, while working in his home laboratory on
this site and went on to found science-based industry.” Even in
the 21st century, when home labs tend to be more synonymous with
methamphetamine than major discoveries, there are some
professional chemists who pursue their science at ho