Oh yeah, they’ll produce quite a concussive force, and the fireball will toast anything above it, but the fire wouldn’t spread to the surrounding area… too much.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway - DO NOT try this at home.
They don’t have to.
1-lb flour dust confined explosion Edit: Same video as Johnny LA
Back in the day of steel coffee cans with steel lids I did a science fair project by drilling a hole in the bottom of one and gluing a small funnel in it for a hopper. A tealight candle was also glued onto the bottom and a couple feet of surgical tubing plugged into the end of the funnel sticking out of the bottom.
Fill about half of the funnel with flour, light the candle, push the lid on, and puff some air into the tubing. The lid would fly into the ceiling with a resounding whack.
Oh, yeah - I used to send paint cans flying with a similar set up.
My stepfather was the manager of an old, wooden grain elevator in Minnesota. One hot August day, the thing just exploded from all of the grain dust in the air. It was pretty traumatic for the entire farming community, since that’s where every farmer stored their surplus harvest, waiting for a train to take the grain to market (hence the reason for the tall “elevator” buildings, to facilitate faster loading into hopper cars). I’m not sure if it was well insured; as a farmer’s co-op, there was lots of shared losses.
The following summer, my brother tried to do a 4-H demonstration of an explosion using flour dust, as described by @DesertDog. It worked fine when he tried it at our old, hot farmhouse, but when he tried to replicate it for his demonstration in front of the 4-H judges, he couldn’t get it to ignite. They were meeting in an air conditioned building, which reduced the static electricity issues. (And yes, it was kind of poor taste to replicate the worst day of the stepfather’s life.)
The editor for this newspaper story is a stupid MFer. (Or, more kindly, someone who just made a mistake. But they ended up here anyway!)
“According to Grundy County Sheriff’s Police it happened around 2:10 p.m. when a man on a motorized skateboard became engaged in the chilling accident on Seneca Road. At the time he was reportedly navigating an area between the I-80 overpass and Morey Road, the skateboarder was unexpectedly thrown onto the pavement, striking his head and inflicting grave injuries upon impact.
…
The Skateboard was airlifted to a nearby hospital…”
Flammable substance + extremely large surface area to volume = don’t play around.
Or maybe do play around:
Most fine powders will explode when dispersed in air, including things like flour, sugar, coffee, tea, sawdust, metal filings, coal dust, non-dairy creamer, etc. The increased surface area of the powder allows it to interact more efficiently with oxygen.
Dr. Dave Grohl demonstrates:
I learned this from, of all people, Terry Pratchett. In Monstrous Regiment, the protagonists, an all-female squad of soldiers attempting to pass for men, are locked up in a kitchen by their enemies after their sex has been discovered. They escape when one of them, a pyromaniac, blows up the door with a candle and flour dust.
But, but…I never saw Lebron’s magic sprinkly dust explode!
Here’s a video similar to what you are describing: Redirecting...
Not to mention no fairy fireballs.
I think I’ve heard that it can happen with cotton fibers, too. Someone told me that cotton processing mills use machinery powered by compressed air. Electric machinery would pose a risk of igniting the fine cotton lint that lingers in the air.
Just remembered. Here is a 9:30 report from the Chemical Safety Board on an explosion killing 14 at a sugar mill.
Wrong thread - disregard
I’m shocked, shocked I say, that Bored Ape NFTs are somehow worthless.
From the article:
According to cryptocurrency market tracker CoinGecko, the colorful digital illustrations of apes can now be bought for as little as $52,445. As recently as May 2022, the cheapest would have cost collectors over $400,000.
So not exactly worthless. I’m kind of stunned that they still command those sorts of prices.
Also from the article, quoting the lawsuit:
“Sotheby’s representations that the undisclosed buyer was a ‘traditional’ collector had misleadingly created the impression that the market for (Bored Ape Yacht Club) NFTs had crossed over to a mainstream audience,”
This would not come as a surprise to the investors if they had just watched Line Goes Up as the rest of us did. It’s all hype, and nothing but hype.
I got some tulip bulbs for sale and a couple shares in the South Seas Company.
Package deal?
I think CNN is very kind to call these people investors, instead of a more accurate term.
There’s an investor born every minute.