• Question: Have you done experiments that include explosions?

    Asked by anon-205605 to Russell, Kathryn, Jose Angel, Gabriel on 14 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Russell Arnott

      Russell Arnott answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Some of the phytoplankton I study have little gas bubbles inside them called vesicles. If I mix them upwards too quickly before they’ve had time to get the gas out, the cells can explode.
      So technically I cause loads of tiny explosions!
      Generally in science, if things are exploding, you’ve done something wrong so you do you’re best to be as safe as possible in the lab and at sea.

    • Photo: Kathryn Boast

      Kathryn Boast answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Only little explosions (so far!). I have a nice little experiment where you put some liquid nitrogen into the bottom of a bottle and put a balloon over the top. Liquid nitrogen is at -196C, so it warms up and boils really easily, and when it goes from being a liquid to being a gas, it expands 700 times! As in 10ml of liquid (which is tiny) becomes seven litres of gas, which is huge! So the balloon gets bigger and bigger and bigger as the nitrogen liquid turns into a gas. And sometimes it does go BANG.
      I also do some stuff with liquid oxygen, which can make things spontaneously combust – which means they set themselves on fire. At the moment I’m trying to find a way to prove that it’s liquid oxygen by setting fire to it (BOOM) – but in a safe and controlled way of course…! I

    • Photo: Gabriel Gallardo

      Gabriel Gallardo answered on 15 Mar 2019: last edited 15 Mar 2019 11:43 am

      Nope, but we do collide protons, and the pictures that come out of that do look like explosions:

    • Photo: Jose Angel Martinez-Gonzalez

      Jose Angel Martinez-Gonzalez answered on 15 Mar 2019:

      During my university days, I made some experiments that include explosions:

      Sodium with water:

      Ammonia dichromate Vulcano:

      And the thermite reaction:

      But all these reactions were made in a laboratory taking all necessary safety measures. It is not something that has to be done at home.

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