I delight in the forming of historical context for when people say TNT, they think of dynamite and have no more idea of it than what C4 or gunpowder is. In doing research on the dynamics of what made English blackpowder a superior substance over American powders in the judgment of buffalo hunter, Col. Charles Mayer, I came upon a treatise of noted English gunmaker, William Greener who was experimenting with various conditions and reactions in explosions.
What Mr. Greener experimented on was literally taking a rifle barrel and plugging it on both ends and setting off charges in it. It was interesting and telling in he had four charges from light to heavy. When the light charge was set off the ball flattened. When he set off the 3rd charge, the ball was unharmed. In setting off the 4th charge, the barrel ruptured.
What Greener was finding was a reality that long barrels on guns due to the "air" being forced against would actually recoil or kick harder and that in long barrel length it would impede the flight of the projectile as air was not just resisting, but compacting and becoming a wall in effect.
That is why the 4 charges Mr. Greener tested are most interesting in when the charge was light the air was not compressed enough to matter, but at charge 3 the air compressed to a perfect extent to equal the explosive charge so the ball was not deformed. When the powder charge became greatest, the air actually became a solid projectile which blew the barrel out.
This is fascinating because it points to when you have seen in cinema barrels blowing out, it was not the bullet doing it, but instead it was the air becoming the bullet which destroyed the barrel.
No one ever considers that air is anything but a vapor, but the fact is air is a liquid and birds swim through it in flight. The same by Mr. Greener's experiments shows that like a person doing a belly flop into a pool, that air when met with enough resistance becomes a solid.
I will just mention from a miltary standpoint, that if air could be excited it could form a wall, and no matter nuclear devices or fighter craft could penetrate it. I digress.
There was an experiment in replacing potassium nitrate black powder. The French and English both formulated this unique volatile compound, which was most interesting as William Greener termed it liquid lightning.
French formula
The proportions of the mixture:
nitrate of potash twenty-five parts
chlorate of potassa forty-five
sulphur fifteen, charcoal seven and a half
lycopodium seven and a half parts
English formula
The proportions of the mixture:
chlorate of potassa six parts
fine charcoal one part
sulphur one part
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
Cholrate of potassa is potassium chlorate. The lycopodium which is listed is concluded by my research to be a small evergreen fir, as there are many varieties of this genus, including moss. What the chemistry eludes to in this is a hint of a modern formula, which most people will be ignorant of.
Most do not know that evergreens have a huge supply of oil in their needles. When ignited it goes up like gasoline in a very quick burn. In talking with TL in using a lemon, I asked TL if TL had ever lit citrus peals on fire?
Citrus fruits have in their peals, oils. It is why you use lemon oil for cleaning as it dissolves other oils.
Simply squeezing the peal will squirt the oil out and if it hits a flame it will ignite like evergreen needles.
There is a Shockey or something who markets in America a citrus blend black powder alternative which is not caustic in producing sulfur residues, and I conclude the lycopodium in the French mixture is a like propellant.
This potassium chlorate was so fast burning that Greener termed it liquid lightning, and he time and again refers to the detonations of gunpowder in liquid terms as that is what happens is a liquid fire in a real alchemist's mystery.
"The above mixture was laid aside, not only from the want of power to restrain its effects, but because it was useless, from the very extreme rapidity of its explosion: it forms the atmospheric air into a wall of adamant, by the condensation confining it to a comparatively small space; it becomes lightning— an electric fluid, which, from its very intensity, cannot displace any great mass of air."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
Ponder that for a moment that this explosive was an electric fluid, like lightning is an electric fluid, but this was such a rapid detonation, that it would not displace air in what was termed a "normal" detonation. A nuclear detonation kills by heat in vaporization at ground zero, but that heat expands air causing high winds that produce shrapnel of houses etc... which kills people. Consider this in this liquid lightning is apparently even more efficient in it produces a wall of air as Greener explains, or it might be also that this chemical reaction produces a detonation without the heat to displace air.
This formula had to be carefully mixed and granulated, which means it was less stable.
Early smokeless powders were like unstable in Greener mentioned that even the sunshine would ignite it. So there are means of coating substances to make them more stable. It is a matter that a sulfur type buffer as is used in black powder could also make nitroglycerine a more stable commodity.
"Heat can not be taken up by the air quicker than the atmosphere will convey sound; and before the heat can evaporate the explosion is over, and is consequently noiseless."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
There are so many dynamics in the relation of cause and effect that are the laws of realtion to the cause and effect that it is amazing how the alchemy of it changes substances of flame into liquid. It is the Greener Law built upon Newtonian Law of things in motion tend to stay in motion and things at rest tend to stay a rest, in connection to equal and opposite reactions.
A fast eruption of energy in this dimension is less effective as it makes air a wall. The best type of detonations are slow transfer of energy to the intended objects, for that object must first slowly gain motion to be put into motion. Little effect will occur in rock for example in mining with fine grain or high explosive powders, because the energy moves too quickly. Larger and slower burning powders are what is required just as in William Karamojo Bell formula in his elephant hunting.
A moderate powder charge, moving at moderate velocity, kills far more effectively than excessive powder charges and high speed projectiles.
It is why the old FBI 158 grain semiwadcutter in 38 special had more one shot kills than a 44 magnum shooting a 240 grain projectile. It is about the transference of energy.
Sometimes perfect transferences of energy are achieved in the German 88 artillery piece of the American 270 Winchester round.
Any chemical reaction for detonation or propellent is simply an exciting of the air in order to move a projectile against an established fluid of air. That excitement is a transfer of molecular exchanges which is heat producing. If one could by electic current create that same, thunder clap, then gun powder would not be necessary, and if it was understood that a laser could create an adamant wall, which of course would be a shield against shell, warhead or projectile.
Some more Lame Cherry exclusives in matter anti matter.
agtG
