Darwinism at work

[Hoskins]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fmq2AWBXMg&feature=player_embedded#!

Edited June 18, 2010 by Hoskins

[Julian Alexander]

Oh Yeah, a little too much Magnesium, lol.

[Fishwings]

BWahahaha, I've seen this before, stupid man...

Seen other youtube videos of people doing the same reaction in like open bonfires, you can really hurt yourself with that stuff

[Aeroplane]

Ah this man. Idiot! He seems so shocked when it explodes in his face!

 

 

If you don't want an analysis to ruin your fun...

 

 

He should have lit it using a long stick, outside, while behind something substantial during daylight. When doing something like that.. the table is not a concern though I don't know how much trouble he would have been in had the table been damaged. In all fairness, that little cloth he had put over it would have done absolutely nothing to stop burning gunpowder! That stuff burns HOT. Easily hot enough to burn through the inch or so of light wood that table is probably made of.. with no regard for the cloth. He should have been wearing goggles and gloves at the very least, as well.

 

Did he also not know that containing gunpowder turns it from a fast and hot burning substance into a mild (!) explosive?! This was clearly a case of Did Not Do The Research. Gunpowder was an effective weapon for hundreds of years, the advent of modern explosives doesn't change it's lethality.

 

He is also lucky that the gunpowder mixture was relatively poor. My guess is that he didn't use enough saltpetre [or other suitable oxidising agent] and perhaps too much sulphur because there was a lot of smoke . And/or his reagents were not dry enough and the 'smoke' is steam.

 

 

 

 

I once tried making thermite and lighting it with a match. Luckily, my stupidity weighed down both sides evenly, and the mixture was both not fine enough to combust in my face and was not going to be ignited by a match. It was only years later that I realised just how hot 'up to 2500C' is when my then chemistry teacher demonstrated thermite as an 'end of term wow'. I saw thermite shatter a 2 inch thick pyrex basin filled with (at a guess)20 litres of cold water! I think the 'Oh Sh!t!' look my accomplices and I shared across the room somewhat detracted from the 'wow'.

[Krista]

Darwinism = Evolution isn't towards a "perfect" end.

[scotchirish87]

That looked faked to me, the explosion looked spliced in, the lights where immediately back on after the smoke cleared, he way overacted being blown back, his hair wouldn't be splotchy, it would just be gone, and any normal person would be screaming 'SHIT' not a calm 'holy smokes' five seconds after.

[PrivateTim]

Wow, that explosion was so powerful it blew the lights back on...... hmmmmmm.