Gerta’s husband left her for another woman, so she decided to make a lethal mixture to take her life. Attempting to make it as powerful as possible, she mixed sodium hydroxide with hydrochloric acid. She quaffed her cocktail of death, but nothing happened. Why?
Answer
Sodium hydroxide is a base and hydrochloric acid is an acid. When she mixed them together, they cancelled each other out. If she had taken either of them separately, she would have died. Together, she was drinking salt water.