Could you outrun a fireball?

and fireballs. It's I mean, as long as you are consuming action films and action oriented TV shows, it's everywhere. Well, even dramas have a bit of you know, fire spewing forth from time to time, and well like, yeah, I think you were mentioning even even Breaking Bad, right, which is considered has been considered the pinnacle of television in recent years. Yeah, Breaking Bad will dip into a couple

of the tropes that you see when it comes to fireballs. Um, specifically I'm thinking about Walt and I hope this isn't a spoiler. This is early on in the series. This is when he kind of takes a turn down the road. Um, this is right after he shaved his head and he is dealing with a drug dealer named Tuco, and he has brought to the drug dealer something called mercury fulminate which is inexclusive. Now the drug dealer doesn't know this,

thinks is the back of meth. What does Walt do when he feels threatened, He throws a little piece of this ampleca boom like the you know, the windows are blown out, there's a big fireball um and it's done to great effect, right, because at that very moment you love Walt even more because of his science smarts and his ability to create this um, this sort of chemical

combustion that gets him out of a jam. In reality, though, with this work, yeah yeah, I mean, you'd have to have like a stick of dynamite along with the mercury fulm in it, and it just wouldn't be nearly as interesting. You have to sit there and wait for him to like stick a dynamite, and yeah, it's not not very cinematic um for me. One of the earliest examples comes to mind. Uh. It's probably from Predator, where not only does uh does Schwarzenegger out run the explosive device that

the defeated predator sets off on its risk. Uh, it's like apparently a tactical nuke that goes off. Essentially, they're in the jungle. In the jungle, which is also key as well discussed, you know, roots and trees and everywhere, he's able to outrun this this tremendous detonation. Uh. And you know he's not in the sequel, but he's supposedly survived. Now I'm taking this from TV trips dot Org. They say a time bomb, super weapon, crash car, etcetera is

about to explode. The heroes run as fast as they can and try to leap behind shelter just as it explodes. Often features a cool shot of the heroes diving towards the camera. And when I read that initially, I kind of felt that sort of mirrorner on motion, Like, yes, I know that I've seen that trope so many times that I feel the motion of that sentence. Indeed, I mean another one too, is, of course, the the badass

walking away from the explosion. Explosion sets off. Generally, you know it's the the guy or gal in your action film is so in control of the situation. Uh, they know there's about to be a tremendous explosion. They know that they're safe, or they just don't care. They're that they're that awesome, uh that they just walk They're just walking and it's exploding behind them and they don't even care. Maybe they're even lighting a cigarette. Breaking bad has another

example of that. Yes, in fact, it's the Salamanca Terror twins. Oh yes, those guys definitely badasses. And I believe that they one of them is smoking a cigarette and then they ignite a truck and they walk away. And in fact, there's a YouTube video that features this clip of them, and it's the title of it is cool guys look at explosions. Indeed they were. They were pretty cool and collected.

And you know that you mentioned them mere neurons. And I think that's you know, when we watch somebody that's so bad and in control of this situation that they can just walk away from the explosion. I mean, that's who doesn't want that in their life, to have that kind of control, that kind of detachment from from the stresses and explosions, uh, literal and metaphorical in their life, which is why you may want to break out a

little board game called Fireball Island. Ah. Yes, I fondly remember this uh board game published by Milton Bradley, which I had. I received it for Christmas, I think one year and uh, you'll you'll have to check out the commercial for this on include a link on the landing page in this episode because it was this brilliant like three D board. It's it's essentially an island, like a volcanic island, and impossibly, even as a kid, I knew

this was just made no sense. Uh, but some ancient civilization has built this like demon shaped temple thing on top of the volcano, like you do. And then this thing would turn and it would spit fireballs red marbles, uh down these different pathways, and of course the people playing the game are trying to move their little dudes along the pathway and I think they were collecting treasure and if the marble came down and hit you, it would knock you all the way back down towards the beginning.

But but yeah, even then, I had a lot of questions, like what is this fireball? We're out running? Is this just is this lava? Is this is this flame? Is it is it an explosion? What's going on here? What am I trying to out run? Why in the commercial is their actual flame coming from the ball and mine is just a big marble no flames. Um. I was looking at this on eBay. They are fetching up to three hundred bucks ones that are intact with all the pieces. Wow,

that's that's pretty impressive. I wish I knew where mine was, right all right, So we're going to discuss this and today's episode. Now, we're not going to get into the fancy magical fireball idea, but we're going to get into sort of are equally magical and fanciful almost subconscious ideas about explosions and fire. Most of us do not encounter wildfires or explosions in our daily life. We encounter on TV.

We kind of get this idea about how they work, and we take for granted the uh, the the reactions that are taking place. So first we're gonna talk about wildfires, then we're going to talk about explosions, and we're going to talk about our ability or inability rather to outrun either of these forces. Before we launch in, I want to ask you, Robert, because this is a kid sort of dinner party question. Uh, what is your relationship to fire?

My relationship to fire? Uh? Currently? Um, the lighting of stoves with a little click click thing, um, the lighting of candles when necessary. Uh, And that's pretty much pretty much it, because I have these memories as a kid and my my babysitter, who is um giant hippie, loved her, but she would have us um put our hands through the candle to see if we could exert some sort of magic force on it and not burn ourselves. So that's sort of my first memories of that and trying

to capture and harness fire. And I think it's one of the reasons why when we see these tropes we get sort of excited, not just because of the mirror neurons, but because it calls back to something primal, like, yes, here's this this element and could we in fact walk away from it if it were to try to consume us. Yeah, yeah, I mean I definitely. I remember being into like matches and fireworks at some point when I was a kid,

and I mean like the fire. The flamethrower is another example of something that like from a kid level, like sci fi action movie level, like flamethrowers are awesome, but then if you look at the reality of flamethrowers that they are hillacious, awful devices, awful weapons. Um, So there's always a divide between that. But we can't help. But but but find something magical in the flickering flame. So let's kick up with wildfire. Um and let's we're just

gonna throw it out there. Humans versus fire speed? How does it? How does it pan out? Well? First, let's look at a human. According to the National Council on Strength and Fitness, the average human can run at a speed of fifteen miles per hour kilometers per hour for a short period of time. Okay, and as far as records go, the world's fastest runner, Hussain Bolt, has clocked nearly twenty eight miles per hour or forty kilometers per

hour in the hundred meters sprint. Okay. Meanwhile, our friend, the wildfire travels its speeds up to fourteen miles an hour or twenty three kilometers an hour, and it does so by consuming everything in its path, for naturally occurring vegetation, to homes or even human beings. So in a short term race without any complicating factors, the average human probably has a slight leg up, and more gifted runners can

probably smoke the fire completely. But it's those complications, uh that are that are definitely worth taking into account when trying to outrun a wildfire, right because these don't occur in a vacuum as we know. So complicating factors would include the fact that you're probably running through unfamiliar terrain, right if you're out in the forest, you probably don't know it like the back of your hand. Um, So that can add to the confusion when you're trying to navigate.

In addition, a thick fog of smoke could be rolling through the area, making it hard to determine the best path forward, particularly when the wind shifts direction right and there's the heat from the fire because it turns out that many more people die from smoke inhalation and dehydration than from actual burns. So all of these things are making this this uh, this mays through a natural disaster that much more difficult. Yeah, and there's just so many variables.

Like I can't help but think if you were if you were trying to to map and program the movement of a wildfire, and say a board game or computer game, there there would just be so many barreals, so many dice rolls would have to take place because because just the slightest change in the wind, for instance, can alter the course of the fire. Suddenly it's it's moving. Uh, it's moving to your left, etter to your right, etcetera. And then you have to take into account the fuel

that it's consuming. You have grasses that are that are burning easily on dry, hot windy days, branches, twigs and leaves that are serving as as as as a tremendous fuel, creating more heat. And then you have dry tree bark that can carry the flames up to the tree tops, burning more material and causing the fire to break and spread. So it's, uh, there's there's so much chaos in the system. It's it's difficult to map, certainly difficult to map on

the ground dealing with all of these complications. And yeah, you can try to be strategic about it. So if you could figure out which way the fire is moving, and you situated yourself parallel to it, this is called the flank of the fire, then that puts you in a much better position as opposed to say, in front of the fire, which is kind of like a dot um. Another thing you could do is you could look for

a path with little or no vegetation. So a rock, gravel or dirt path would ensure that you're not surrounding yourself with tinder. All of those dry branches and twigs leaves, that would create a little bit more forced um tinder there for you, and then you would want to move downhill if you could. That's because the fire will burn

faster uphill, you know. That's because the flames can easily reach more unburnt fuel in front of the fire, and then radiant heat preheats the fuel in front of the fire, making the fuel even more flammable. And that's not to say that any of these strategies are a guarantee of safety. In the house Stuff Works article Can You out Run a Fire? By Alston Cooper, she points out that the Yarnell Hill airs on a wildfire in June two thousand

killed nineteen members of the Granite Mountain hot Shots. And the hot Shots, of course, are they have advanced strategies and they are experts in maintaining um the fires and extinguishing them. So what happened during this particular wildfire is that the wildfire was aided by fifty mile per hour or eighty kilometers per hour down drafting winds of an approaching thunderstorm. We're talking about covering one d yards in

nineteen seconds. And the firefighters who were in a box hand and were trapped when the fire essentially rushed into it. They we're talking about a dangerous and at times unpredictable force here. It's not not the fire in your heart, it's not the fire on your barbecue. This is a This is fire that is quite literally wild, consuming materials, shifting around, and it's easy to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Indeed, all right, we're

going to take a quick break. When we get back, we're going to look at what it would take to outrun an explosion. All right, we're back out running an explosion. Possible, impossible. I think you will find it is the latter of those two options, despite again how often we see it done in our TVs and movies. Let's start with just, uh, just getting down to brass tacks here. What is an explosion?

What is an explosive? Even um, All explosives are little more than elements that burn or decompose at an incredible speed. Um and explosions occur when a large amount of energy is released into a small volume of area in a very short time. So it might be hydrothermal, uh, you know, naturally occurring in the earth. It might be chemical arising from say a man made explosion, or it might even be nuclear. Now, the reaction produces a massive amount of heat and gas in a very short period of time.

An explosive chemical action breaks down compounds into highly compressed gases as well as heat resulting from compound molecules being blasted apart. Then the gas expands rapidly and the heat speeds up individual gas particles to increase expansion speed even more. And this rapidly expanding gas is called a pressure wave, and it's key to any explosives destructive power as the pressure If the pressure wave is fast enough to break the sound barrier, it also generates a powerful shock wave.

So anytime you have a land explosion, a real life land explosion from hand garnades took a dynamite exploding car, you name it, Uh, you're gonna have a situation where the blast can just almost instantaneously burned skin, tear apart, limbs,

propel objects and shrapnel through the air. Um, it's a it's it's a dangerous situation and and uh again, we often sort of fall into a magical way of thinking about the explosion as just this sort of blast, this this big fiery thing that happens, and not this this this really fast chemical reaction that just sends out this pressure wave. Yeah. To illustrate that, let's look at a

C four explosive. Now, this is typical typically used by the United States Armed Forces, and when it is detonated, gases are released from the explosive at the rate of twenty six thousand, four hundred ft per second or eight thousand fifty per second. Yeah, which means that if you are within twenty four thousand feet of it, your toast within just one second. So that really I think that shatters the illusion pretty quickly, unless you're watching the Flash

or Superman or something. It's it's putting it outside the normal range. Now, some other explosives like a pipe bomb, well, the U. S Department of Homeland Security says the minimal safe distance from a five pound or two point two kilogram bomb pipe bomb is twelve hundred feet or three hundred sixty And then you'll see as the size of the bomb goes up, so to just the since that

you should be away from it. So a fifty pound briefcase bomb you should be about eighteen hundred and fifty feet away or five hundred sixty four a tractor trailer bomb that would be about nine thousand, three hundred feet or two thousand, eight hundred that you would want to be away from it. So again the question arises, could you get from point A to point B this safe zone in any of those scenarios, And it's just not likely.

Even if you are Usain Bolt, who could cover two hundred meters in nineteen seconds um, which is about thirty four ft per second, that's still not gonna get you to where you need to be. Indeed, I mean pretty much the only scenario that even works from any kind of film or actions situation would be if there's a timer and you're you're not out running the explosion itself, but your your character is attempting to it to that uh that that manium that minimum evacuation distance before it

goes off. But even then, the minimum evacuation distance is just the range at which life threatening injury from the blast or fragmentation hazards are unlikely. Uh So, a person within the safe zone of uh surrounding this explosion. They can still suffer injuries, they're not life threatening. You can still get hit by shrapnel, you can still be knocked

down by the shock wave. Um, all of that is still in play, which could significantly uh impact your badass walk away from the explosion, right because the badass walk away. You don't tend to see the hero or the anti hero with pock marks of you know, damage done by the shrack knowledge, hearing loss or anything. No, they're completely intact. Um. So yeah, again, abbous, but this is not very realistic. Even the countdowns and we see them depicted in TV

and film aren't being true to the actual time that's passing. Yeah. And and it goes without saying a lot of times when you have a really cool explosion in a film, you end up kind of seeing it in slow motion anyway, so you get this kind of false idea about what's happening. You do see like this fireball expanding, and uh and

you know, we just we just don't. Most of us do not have explosions occurring in our daily life and have any kind of real, uh you know, real down to earth understanding about what's happenings as far as the chemical reaction goes well, and if you did, you probably would have a pretty strong case of PTSD. Right. Um, So this, this unfortunately is the reality for some people.

And we were talking about this earlier. Probably one of the more realistic depictions of explosions is something like the hurt Locker, where they do quite a bit of really good camera work to try to bring some sort of very similitude to what is happening on screen. Yeah, they did a great job at also making you feel that bombs and particular really the explosive devices that they were diffusing, our nasty weapons, these are not these are not fun explosions.

And it gets into that flamethrower are discussing earlier. You know, there's just there's this huge disconnect between the cool explosions, the cool weapons that we encounter in our our our fictional media, versus the generally hillacious reality of their use. All Right, we are going to take a break. When we get back, We're going to attend to some listener mail.

All right, we're back. Indeed, let us call over the robot here and uh and catch up on a little bit of listener mail we received so many great comments from you guys and gals, and you know, sadly we we don't always have time to h to read them here on the podcast, but today we have changes. Indeed, all right, we have an email and I'm not gonna share her name because she did not say whether or not we could share it, but she's said, hey, guys,

have you ever researched how second hand embarrassment works? Because I suffer from it pretty bad and I can't find a lot about it scientifically. And I thought that was that's really interesting. We have an upcoming episode on our to do list about shame. And it it also made me think about empathy. And I know I've mentioned this before, but there's a book called The Empathy Exams. It's really great. It's a bunch of essays that deal with empathy and how it frames our world and even how it affects

our bodies, our health. So guys check it out if you'd like. All Right, I have another bit of listener mail here. This one comes from an anonymous listener or listener that wishes to remain anonymous. Says, Hi, Robert and Julie stumbled upon your podcast by accident, and I'm glad that I did. It's quite interesting, to say the least. Recently, I've been catching up on some episodes and I just finished listening to the one you did about the zen

of pain, and one thing came to mind. I have chronic, almost constant pain right next to my right shoulder blade as well as in my right at hand. It's not something I enjoy by any means, far from it. However, the things that seemed to help me with it are certain exercises uh there. They were prescribed by a professional, which also caused pain, quite a bit of pain, putting a lot of pressure on my shoulder blade to the point of almost crying out with pain. But this helps too.

For some strange reason, I also know a few other people who feel the same way about some of the pains they are having. From extremely unscientific observations, it would seem as if physical pain not only helps us reach a liberation for from our guilt and other bad feelings, but also from physical pain. I just thought it was interesting observation and wanted to share. Maybe you could do an episode on that too in the future. Keepon podcasting

and have a wonderful day. An anonymous listener from Canada. I don't know that we had talked about pain in terms of transformation in a more positive way before, but that's an interesting angle. Yeah. I mean I have noticed, like in just doing stretches and stuff, and if I have, you know, ultimately you know, minor sores going on with my with my muscles. Like sometimes you end up going into a position or a stretch that you're you are causing a bit of tension there, but your the tension

is kind of combating another lingering pain. It's indeed, there's a there's there's a there's a lot of complexity in uh in in the the the pain pleasure system. That's what I think is interesting about yoga. Um not so much that sometimes you feel pain, and in fact, if you feel too much pain, you should definitely back off.

But when you're in a pose and you're pushing yourself, there's a level of discomfort that they yoga teacher will often say, is your opportunity to dwell with that discomfort and not keep pushing it away, but sort of meeting it. And a lot of the discomfort in your in your body can translate to the discomfort that you feel in your mind and We've talked about how emotional pain and physical pain overlap each other quite a bit, so it's an interesting exercise in and of itself. A one and

to read this next email. This is from Emmily and she says, Hello, Julian Robert. I wanted to say good job on the Blue podcast. I listened to it while I was coloring pages for a comic book. Part of being a colorist means a lot of color theories, so I thought you guys touched on the subject very well. I thought I might add a couple of ideas if

you do a few other color related podcasts. There have been studies I've seen saying how certain stores or fast food restaurants will use color to make people hungry but not wish to stay too long in the restaurant. Also, don't remember if there's been a podcast on the Man to Shrimp, But these guys are extraordinary little creatures of color. Here's a comic I love, and she's talking about oat. Mail says, and uh, I'd love to point people to for a little bit of information on them. Also, it's

a fun read. And this is so great. A couple of things about this one is we are planning a podcast episode that has to do with sensory manipulation, and restaurants certainly are within that. It's a really big, uh tangled topic, so when we unravel a little bit, we will definitely cart it out for you guys. I want to let Emily know that we're working on that. The

second thing is the Manda shrimp is great. That the Oatmeal comic takes this on and talks about how the manta shrip has sixteen color sensitive receptor cones, which is amazing. They're they're an entirely different sensory world into themselves. Yeah. That that oat Mill comic in particular is great. And if I remember correctly, I think that one followed on the heels of a really really solid Radio Lab episode

where they talk about the Man of Shrimp. So that was kind of like the those two elements came together to really propel the Mantis shrip into its current Internet celebrity status. Yeah, the Matthew and Mean, the creator of Oatmeal. He also has this great bit about how the manta shrimp is one of the most creatively violent creatures on Earth and I won't give it away. Need to go check out the comic to see that. All right, here's

a little bit of listener mail from listener Sophia. Sophia says, I recently found your excellent podcast and was immediately hooked, starting with the episode about rats. I am in fact listening to your podcast right now. I was catching up and I came across the Mad Gasser and mass Hysteria episode, which, in passing, talked about a phenomenon among school girls at

a boarding school. This phenomenon appeared after Christmas break and manifested itself in cold like symptoms, fever, trouble walking, etcetera. You explained how this was caused by the stress of leaving their families after seeing them for only a short period of time. I have in fact experienced this myself last January, right after I had moved back to school after spending time with my family at Christmas break, I

began experiencing a myriad of unsettling symptoms. I had a loss of balance, a sensitivity to even weak sunlight to the point that my pupils would virtually disappear when I was outside, migrains, chills, and even feigning spells. This lasted for about a month and a half and in interestingly only abated when I found out that my mom was

going to visit for my graduation in May. Thank you for clearing up any a paranoia about my symptoms, as I was very con concerned about them for a while and thought it might be some fearful or netherious disease manifesting itself. Your show is amazing and very informative, and I will be a listener for a very long time

to come listening faithfully, Sophia. Thanks Sophia, Um, we really appreciate you sharing with us your own experience, which I think really underscores that whole um body mind connection here when it comes to empathy and to emotional contagion. Indeed, I mean this is definitely one of those subjects that we we are ultimately approaching as outsider. So anytime we can get that insider perspective on a topic, we love it all right. The next one is from Katie. She says,

I don't have a specific request. I just want to say thanks for the great show. I love how often gender and sex comes up. I could listen to you to talk for hours about the amazing biodiversity of sex, organ sexual reproduction, and sexual behavior and you always connected so well with the human bias and baggage that comes along with sex, sexuality and gender. On second thought, maybe I do have a topic suggestion. Have you've done an episode on sex changes, not specifically in humans, but in

animals in general. I feel like the subject comes up but only tangentially in other subjects. It seems like you'd have fun with the subject. Um. I agree, Yeah, that sounds like a like an excellent topic to to jump into. Yeah, thanks, Hattie. We actually have on the house stuff works dot com website, we have an article called how gender reassignment works. And we have an article called why some species change sex? So, um, I certainly think we should put the latter on our

to do list. Indeed, indeed, all right, So there you have it. If you listener mails to uh satisfy the robot and uh and hopefully listeners as well, and uh Hey, if you want to check out more of our podcast episodes past and hey maybe even future. You want to check out our videos or blog post links out to our social media accounts, head on over to stuff to

Blow your Mind dot com. That is our central homepage and that is where you will find all of our things in the meantime, unders your thoughts, and you can do that by emailing us at stuff to blow your mind. At how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.