Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff Works dot com where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, what is dynamite and how does it work? Dynamite is one example of a chemical explosive, and explosive is anything that, once ignited, burns extremely rapidly and produces a large amount of hot gas in the process. The hot gas expands
very quickly and applies pressure. Other explosives that you commonly hear about our nitroglycerin and TNT, but anything from gasoline to ammonium nitrate fertilizer to special plastic explosives are in the same class. Gasoline is what we are probably most familiar with, so let's start with it. Gasoline is made up of hydrogen and carbon atoms in chains. If you
ignite a quantity of gasoline, it burns dreamly rapidly. Oxygen in the air combines with the hydrogen and carbon atoms to create CO two gas and H two O vapor, along with a lot of heat. In large quantities, the hot expanding gas creates an expanding pressure wave that can blow things apart or in an engine provide useful work. Most true explosives contain the oxygen they need for burning
inside the chemical This allows burning to occur much more quickly. Nitroglycerin, for example, contains carbon and hydrogen like gasoline, but also oxygen and a little nitrogen. The carbon and the hydrogen combined with that oxygen and the nitrogen is liberated. Dynamite is simply some sort of absorbent material, like sawdust soaked in nitroglycerin. The absorbent material makes the nitroglycerin much more stable.
You normally use a blasting cap to detonate dynamite. A blasting cap creates a small explosion that triggers the larger explosion in the dynamite itself. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how staffork staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The hou stefforks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.