Thermight!

Or, Conrad's Love Of All Things Exploding

This is not news.  Your Humble Scribe is always yarking on about explosions and atom bombs and blowing up the Moon, stuff like that.  Basically, Bigger Bangs Are Better. The biggest bang imaginable might well be a nine-stage Teller-Ulam thermonuclear weapon with a yield in teratons, which would destroy Planet Earth if detonated, which is all the more reason to test it on - Venus.  Yeah, take that, Venus.  Art!

     Venus is probably the only planet in the Solar System that would be greatly improved by detonating a planet-killer on the surface.

     ANYWAY we've gotten a bit off-topic, because, as you may have gathered from the title, we're going to look at Thermite today.

     Conventional thermite is normally a mixture of iron oxide and aluminium oxide, in granular form.  It's potent stuff when you get it to ignite, and you need to be certain that you want it to Burn Baby Burn, because you can't simply stop the conflagration by waving your hands at it.  Art!

     Yes, this is indeed "Mythbusters" and the chaps are attempting to replicate an internet video, where a bucket of ignited thermite placed on blocks of ice suddenly explodes.  Art!

     Thermite being a bad boy.  Ice being cool.  Art!

     The moment of truth, where Jamie jumps in surprise as the bucket does indeed explode, scattering burning thermite everywhere.  The bucket was completely disintegrated and ice was thrown up to 50 yards away, including a football-sized piece that hit the blast shield.  The chaps also decided to go all the way with a junked SUV, which they loaded up with 1,000 pounds of thermite.  Art!

     I think the supposed goal of the mythbusting was seeing if they could cut a car in half, lengthwide, using thermite.  'Twas an unequal contest, seeing as how the car wasn't made of solid neutronium.  Art!

     Imagine living downwind of these pyromaniacs, what unabated joy your life must be.  We are informed that thermite burns three times hotter than lava, and Conrad found out this means 2,500 ⁰C.  Art!

On tonight's menu: Roast Car

     If we whiz to the other side of the planet, we encounter the Finns, and most especially the Finns whose Youtube channel "Beyond The Press" showcases what boredom, vodka and explosives combine to do.  This time, they were demonstrating three different types of thermite: conventional, with iron oxide; then one mixture with magnesium oxide, and lastly one with copper oxide.  No, they didn't have a blast-shield like Jamie and Adam but they did stand quite far away, nor were they trying to blow up metal containers.  Art!

Hanah and Lauro.  They seem so normal.

       To establish a baseline, our intrepid explosive abusers set off a small heap of iron thermite.  They used a fuse that primed a small block of plastic explosive.  Art!

     Pretty much as expected.  There was puddled iron slag left from the reaction afterwards.  Then it was the magnesium thermite.  Art!

     Rather a disappointment to connoisseurs of explosive mayhem, frankly.  Then they tried copper thermite.  Art!

     There was no gradual or incremental increase in burn rate, the whole thing instantly went up in a fireball.  You might expect this makes copper thermite useless; no so.  In the Comments people explained that it has uses in industrial manufacturing, and for welding cables at height.  Art!

     "Braniac", the UK's far sillier version of a mythbusting show, decided to fill this car's tank up with petrol, and then place a container of thermite directly over said filled tank.

     You can see where this is going.  Art!

On tonight's menu - Fricaseed Ford

     I'd call that a RESULT!

     Okay, that's enough thermite for one day.

Dallying With Daedalus

I'm not going to apologise for putting up more pictures of the 'Daedalus' robot probe, because I think it's a cool idea that might actually become possible within my lifetime.  Which is not to say it's probable, because it would be phenomenally costly.  Art!

     The 'LH2' is Lithium Hydride, using either deuterium or tritium isotopes, which would be used as fusion fuel.  I wondered what 'Wardens' might be and in the next picture they were explained.  Art!

     If you cannot resolve the text, be advised that they are autonomous robotic service units, able to check over the Daedalus and repair any damage caused during the transit of interstellar space.  Art!

     Yes yes yes I know it looks vaguely like an ancient fertility deity, now go WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!

Yet More Of Robot Warriors

I didn't think I'd be able to keep this theme going for so long, and I've omitted a whole lot of information about current research and design in the field.  Well, let's ignore that for a moment and return to one of the finest modern animated series ever made -  "Samurai Jack".  Art!

     One problem that creator Genndy Tartakovsky had was the very high body count, because studio executives get twitchy and nervous about violence in children's cartoons.  I don't know why, it never did any harm to me.*

     The solution was obvious: when Jack was slaying entire armies of Aku's minions, he was destroying robots, not flesh-and-blood creatures.  Problem solved.  Art!

     What better way to avoid blood and gore than to have THINGS EXPLODING!

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is preparing to be a very large fly in the ointment.

     Enough shilly-shallying.  Get there and find out! he told himself.  Then suited action to words.  The lighting didn’t get any brighter in the lower levels, making him wonder about how the Lithoi’s optics functioned.  Slowly, at a guess.  No need for visual acuity when you move slower than treacle in midwinter.

     Three floors down, he darted a peek around the corner of the stairwell.  Another anonymous grey corridor, broken in ennui by the glaring red bars around a doorway close to the stairwell.  A lizard wearing ceramic armour stood outside the brazen doorway.

     Bullseye! gloated the Doctor.  Prisoners, prepare to be freed!

     Having said this he paused and watched for another five minutes.  The guard didn’t visibly move from his station, in fact seemed to barely move for anything including breathing.

     Oho.  A very slow metabolism.  Very, very slow.  Were it not for that art-deco studded collar, I’d not have any trouble putting the kibosh on matey.  As it is, that collar looks to be full of sensors and lasers and computer technology to compensate for metabolic backwardness.

     Stepping out from the concealment of the stairwell, the Doctor brought his pistol to bear and shouted “Freeze!” in what he hoped was a commanding voice.

"The War Illustrated Edition 189"

Given that we're not already accosted by war and strife, I feel it's about time to wheel out an item concerning this publication of the Second Unpleasantness.  Conrad is rather curious what it's content was like during the first half of the war, when things went very badly for the Allies.  Art!

     I believe that's a Guy armoured car.  This is probably a staged photo op, but it does embody the end of the Teuton army in France, which endured colossal aerial and artillery punishment as it struggled to escape encirclement and get across the Orne River, mostly unsuccessfully.  Art!

     Some of the photographs of the carnage are so awful that there's no way TWI would ever publish them, nor are we.  We have some class.  Art!

     That photo at top shows one of the unsung heroes of the campaign across Occupied Europe; Royal Engineers building bridges.  The Teutons, in hopes of delaying an Allied advance across river obstacles, were forever destroying bridges, hoping to slow things down for long enough to get a bit of distance.  The RE took this as a challenge and endeavoured to get bridges (or ferries) across a river as soon as possible.  

     Also, in the spirit of hair-splitting pedantry, I would like to point out that the lead vehicle is a South Canadian M10 tank destroyer, not a tank.  You can tell by the open turret.

Finally -

I am now up for the challenge of the remaindered food!

*  Your view may differ.