Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site masscomp.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!masscomp!garyo
From: garyo@masscomp.UUCP (Gary Oberbrunner)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Dust explosions -- a non sequitur
Message-ID: <873@masscomp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 13:49:30 EST
Article-I.D.: masscomp.873
Posted: Fri Feb  7 13:49:30 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 05:41:22 EST
References: <1586@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: garyo@masscomp.UUCP (Gary Oberbrunner)
Organization: Masscomp - Westford, MA
Lines: 19
Summary: 


  I saw a good demonstration at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto of the
explosive power of tiny particles; the demonstrator poured a pile of mustard
seeds (which are almost dust-sized) into his palm and played a lit blowtorch
over them.  No effect.  ('Course he didn't do it for long...)  Then he held
the blowtorch out and threw the pile of dust into the flame, and WHOOOSH!
A large fireball, and plenty of noise.  (The demonstrator stood way back while
doing this).  Certainly proved the importance of surface area in this kind of
combustion.

By the way, if you're ever in Toronto and you've never been to the OSC, (if
you've been there you know what I mean), DON'T MISS IT!  It's probably the
best science & technology museum in the world (even better than the Deutsches
Museum in Germany).


					- Gary Oberbrunner
					  MASSCOMP
					  ...{harvard,allegra}!masscomp!garyo