• Phi@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I mean the reason nuclear weapons are measured in megatonnes and so on is that it is actually megatonnes of TNT. And hence Its predecessor Dynamite.

    So… we couldn’t relate destructiveness without good ol’ Alfred.

    • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      TNT has nothing to do with dynamite or Nobel. It was discovered years before dynamite was invented, however it wasn’t used as an explosive at first. And dynamite is just a mostly stable preparation of nitroglycerin. Nobel didn’t discover any new explosive compounds, he literally just mixed stuff with nitro.

    • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Meh. It was a decent way to make nitroglycerin less unstable, but there are so many better, safer explosives. TNT, for example, is stable enough to be melted down and cast into shells. C4 burns like a candle and won’t detonate without a blasting cap.

      Dynamite tends to “sweat” nitroglycerin over time, and then the slightest amount of heat, friction, or impact can cause it to detonate.