What happens if you get pure sodium in your eye?

[Temotei]

Will pure sodium explode in your eye? Will it react in some other way?

[deuterio12]

For pure sodium to properly "explode" it would kinda need to be fully enveloped in water.

However it would at least burn a hole through an human eye and it would be a pretty messy result either way.

[Brother Oni]

Depends on length of contact. If you were smacked in the eye with it, it's highly unlikely to be explosive and would result in a bad chemical burn to the eye through the formation of sodium hydroxide.

If it were intentionally held and forced into the eye, then if it got into the internal vitreous humour, it would 'explode'. This would take time since the sodium hydroxide has to eat through the external eye tissue and sodium is too soft to effectively stab someone in the eye with.

[factotum]

Just the natural tears on the surface of the eye ought to be sufficient for the sodium to react, though, and it's going to get very hot--so it would probably burn through the tissue without needing to be sharp. Especially since the body's natural reaction to having something shoved in the eyeball is to generate more tears!

[halfeye]

This would be a very, very silly thing to do. If you hated someone enough that you wanted one of their eyes destroyed, you'd probably want them dead, which this wouldn't do. If it was a punishment, there are other ways to destroy eyes some of which would probably be cheaper.

[JeenLeen]

This would be a very, very silly thing to do. If you hated someone enough that you wanted one of their eyes destroyed, you'd probably want them dead, which this wouldn't do. If it was a punishment, there are other ways to destroy eyes some of which would probably be cheaper.

Probably something like 18-20 years ago, at my high school, some bullies wanted to blind a girl*. So they stole hydrocloric acid and lye from the science lab, mixed it together, and threw it in her face.
Fortunately, they were bad at science and didn't realize that mixing a strong acid and strong base essentially makes soapy water. So it hurt, and I'm not sure how bad a punishment they got, but she was okay.

[Caerulea]

Probably something like 18-20 years ago, at my high school, some bullies wanted to blind a girl*

What?!?! Actually permanently disfigure somebody? In high school?!

—Caerulea

[Brother Oni]

What?!?! Actually permanently disfigure somebody? In high school?!

Never underestimate stupid.

[Knaight]

Never underestimate stupid.

Stupid is accidentally hitting someone in the face with glorified salt water when trying to blind them with an acid or base. Actually attempting to carry out an acid (or base) attack? That's closer to evil.

[tomandtish]

Stupid is accidentally hitting someone in the face with glorified salt water when trying to blind them with an acid or base. Actually attempting to carry out an acid (or base) attack? That's closer to evil.

In my experience, those two are not exclusive.

[Knaight]

In my experience, those two are not exclusive.

I'm not saying they are - and this particular incident is a classic par of the overlap. I just want the acid attack part attributed where it belongs.

[Radar]

Stupid is accidentally hitting someone in the face with glorified salt water when trying to blind them with an acid or base. Actually attempting to carry out an acid (or base) attack? That's closer to evil.

Usually I attribute this kind of incidents to an epic level of lack of foresight. Essentielly yes, the goal was to hurt someone very intentionally so evil. At the same time, the perpetrators did not consider the severity or permanence of the damage they tried to inflict so weapon-grade stupidity. In fact, any kind of consideration rarely happens, when base social instincts kick in (bullying is a primitve form of gaining social position or a way of strenghtening a group through a common enemy/victim). Still, utterly despicable and not in a fun way.

[Knaight]

The thing is that acid attacks are a whole known thing - often a close cousin to honor killings, where permanent disfiguration (and often blindness) is the point. Maybe the bullies just hadn't heard about it, maybe they had and were trying to do exactly that. I lean towards the latter.

[Radar]

The thing is that acid attacks are a whole known thing - often a close cousin to honor killings, where permanent disfiguration (and often blindness) is the point. Maybe the bullies just hadn't heard about it, maybe they had and were trying to do exactly that. I lean towards the latter.

Oh... that does change the perspective.

[JeenLeen]

Never underestimate stupid.

I'll also share the story of a girl who wanted to bleach her hair blonde, but I guess her folks wouldn't let her buy the product. So she stole bleach from the lab.
Fortunately, the bleach in the high school lab was watered down enough that it just made her bald (temporarily), not enough to eat through her skin or skull.

Our chemistry teacher liked to tell us stories of former students' stupidity. (He also told us that he was going to tell us how to make a nuke, and what chemicals to use to completely dissolve a human corpse, but he got in trouble the year before for telling students that, so that was a no-go. He was a fun teacher.)

[Vizzerdrix]

Heat vision. You`d get heat vision just before your eyes melted out of your head.

[tomandtish]

Oh... that does change the perspective.

Esp. given that the person who told us about the situation specifically said that their intent was to blind the girl. Definitely evil.