Hey, everybody.
I'm Ben Bowlin, and
today's topic is dynamite.
Dynamite is used
in so many things.
It's used in construction, it's
used in mining, bank robberies,
cartoonish acts of
villainy-- Wile E. Coyote,
huge fan of dynamite.
But the big question
is, why does it explode?
To answer this question
let's look at gasoline,
because gasoline
contains a lot of carbon
and a lot of hydrogen.
Now let's say, just for
the sake of example,
we had a big old
bowl of gasoline.
Don't sweat the details,
just assume for some reason
we have a bowl of gasoline.
We thought it would
be a good idea,
and then I also
decided to ignite that.
What happens there is that
the oxygen, the hydrogen
and the carbon start a reaction,
and then soon enough there's
a fireball.
But oxygen takes a little while
to move into this reaction,
so the explosion might
not be that intense.
Dynamite, however,
has two things
that could make it
much more powerful.
First, the chemical in dynamite
already contains oxygen.
This means that it doesn't
have to draw oxygen
in from the surrounding air.
Second, and here's
the kicker, dynamite
contains lots of nitrogen.
And nitrogen will
react very quickly
with a tremendous
amount of force.
Dynamite's not the only
thing that contains nitrogen.
TNT, nitroglycerin,
some of the fertilizers
that you hear about
mentioned in stories
of truck bombs, these
all have nitrogen,
and they use nitrogen to make
these tremendous explosions.
Spoiler alert-- nitrogen is sort
of the Keyser Soze of dynamite.
It's the power
behind the curtain.
So I hope this
answers your question,
and we really appreciate
your time watching.
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