"Most films of nuclear explosions are dubbed
. If they do contain an actual recording of the test blast itself.........it's almost always shifted in time so that the explosion and the sound of the blast wave are simultaneous. This is, of course, quite false: the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound....." Unearthed recently from some Russian archive, this document of a nuclear detonation is one of the few films
of its kind that includes a recording of the audio. The sound is not what you might expect.
posted by shackpalace
on Jan 26, 2013 -
Nearly a decade ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in a fishing-related explosion (he was building a bomb for blast-fishing). He soon realized that he couldn't afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital. Undeterred, he decided to build his own bionic hands. Eight years later
posted by unSane
on Aug 17, 2012 -
NPR show us
and tells the story
of five men who agreed to stand directly below and observe a nuclear explosion.
On July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They'd marked the spot 'Ground Zero. Population 5' on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them.
posted by gilrain
on Jul 18, 2012 -
Challenger . . . . go with throttle up
Twenty-five years ago today the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded
73 seconds into the 25th space shuttle flight. The reports (pdf)
tell us of O-Ring failures. Today, we remember
one of the most tragic days in the history
of the U.S. manned spaceflight program. Today, January 28, 2011, we remember: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe
posted by IvoShandor
on Jan 28, 2011 -
7 Dead, 19 Missing
"The Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, has cited the Upper Big Branch Mine for hundreds of violations in recent years, including 10 so far this year related to legal requirements for ventilation systems to control methane and dust. The company has contested numerous fines, including two in January totaling more than $130,000 related to mine ventilation."
posted by wv kay in ga
on Apr 5, 2010 -
One spring afternoon more than 70 years ago, an East Texas teacher turned on an electric sander. The subsequent explosion
caused the New London School to lift into the air and then smash into the ground, ultimately leaving some 300 students and teachers dead in the rubble
. It remains the worst school disaster in American history. [more inside]
posted by SpringAquifer
on Feb 23, 2010 -
From The Titusville Morning Herald of June 17, 1866, "Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo
. ... The torpedo... is lowered into the well, down to the spot, as near as can be ascertained, where it is necessary to explode it. ... The object of the torpedo is to clean out all the deposits at the bottom of the well."
In the western Pennsylvania oilfields of the second half of the 1800s, "shooters" were men who set off nitroglycerin
charges in wells to get the oil flowing again. Tales of Destruction
relates stories and legends of this absurdly hazardous job. Additional notes here
, in Samuel Pees's Oil History
posted by tss
on Nov 5, 2009 -
This past Friday, the MythBusters
exploded 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate (25% of the same material used in the Oklahoma City bombing
,) at a rock quarry in Yolo County, CA for an upcoming episode. But the explosion was apparently a wee bit bigger than they expected. It shattered windows in nearby Esparto
and was large enough to be picked up as a "small event" ground tremor by National Geographical Survey sensors. Which myth were they busting, you ask? [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Mar 26, 2009 -
A large series of explosions
erupted this morning from a welding chemical storage facility in North York (a suburb of Toronto) at approximately 4am EST. The highway 401, North America's busiest, has been closed in sections, and thousands of local residents are still being evacuated, with several of them injured
. Police and fire officials are currently not sure of the possibility of further explosions and are taking precautionary measures. The whole situation has produced
some apocalyptic-looking pictures
posted by tehloki
on Aug 10, 2008 -
A splash of urban colour!
A dilapidated tower block in Glasgow was the setting for a riotous splash of colour this week as Sony followed up their previous Bravia tv campaign of the bouncing balls down the streets of San Francisco with a new advert using a disused towerblock in Glasgow. Some beautiful urban explosion pics here
posted by ClanvidHorse
on Jul 26, 2006 -
The Day Las Vegas Shook
What were you
doing at 11:45am on May 4, 1988? If you were a resident of southern Nevada, you'd remember. That was the day rocket fuel factory PEPCON was wiped off the map
in a series of 7 explosions, two of which measured 3.0 and 3.5 on the Richter scale. The explosions sent shockwaves across the valley,
taking with it marshmellow cream from the marshmellow factory next door, denting garage doors miles away, and shattering damn near every window in Henderson. As the valley's 500,000 residents stood outside wondering what caused the explosion and the massive plume of smoke,
many speculated the Russians had inexplicably attacked Henderson. Miraculously, only two people died. PEPCON never operated another day in Nevada and moved to Utah.
posted by b_thinky
on Mar 4, 2006 -
rocks UK countryside. Police say the oil depot explosion
appears to be an accident,
even though Al-Qaeda called for attacks on the oil industry just a few days ago.
(As usual, the media feels the need to report this, even though Al-Qaeda was speaking of Gulf oil targets, and nothing of this scale could have been implented in just a few days)
Some pictures: 1
posted by empath
on Dec 11, 2005 -
Police evacuate Birmingham centre
West Midlands police have evacuated the second largest city in England tonight as a precautionary measure. Sky News are reporting
that a series of controlled explosions (I heard on Sky News TV that one of these was on a bus, but this may be innacurate) have been carried out in the Broad Street area.
I hope that any and all UK MeFi-ites in Birmingham are keeping sane through out all this.
posted by tomcosgrave
on Jul 9, 2005 -