"What's the most expensive piece of glassware you ever broke?"

What’s the most expensive piece of glassware you ever broke? Chemists share their stories

Chemistry World has an article relevant to everyone who’s ever worked in a lab knows the pain of when something goes horribly wrong. Used the wrong solvent? Check. Accidentally poured your product painstakingly isolated over several weeks down the sink? Check. Tipped acid in the organic waste bin? Whoops. Inadvertently made an explosive? Yikes.

Keith Hornberger, executive director, chemistry at clinical-stage biotechnology company Arvinas in the US, related on X, formerly Twitter, that his son was left feeling a bit unhappy after he broke a beaker in a school chemistry lab. In an effort to cheer his son up and make him feel a bit better about his lab disaster he asked for scientists’ best stories of the biggest or most expensive piece of glassware they’d ever broken.