Film Science Questions for: Kaboom!

Background: explosives have a very contradictory history. They have killed millions and yet they are often used in ways that improve our lives. And, they are all about chemistry - reaction rates, heat, light, gas and sound.

1. What was the point of the investigations at the New Mexico Technical Institute testing grounds?

2. The air blast threw matter how far from the explosion center?

3. Why did Sidney Alford place the tall cardboard tube over the burning candle?

4. a) In the 9^th Century, Chinese alchemists looking for a life-extending substance discovered what?

b) Their efforts to improve health were the ancient start of what huge modern industry?

5. Name two uses of gunpowder in ancient China.

6. The smell of black powder led Rev. Ron Lancaster and his son into what business?

7. The upward force of the fireworks lifting charges pushes the barge how far down into the water?

(What is perhaps ironic about using fireworks as part of the celebration?)

8. How did Roger Bacon's investigations into black powder affect the nature of European combat?

9. How did Bacon handle the black powder to allow it to explode?

10. Make a chart to relate the following information: high explosive, black powder, set off just

by shock, burns, explodes out in the open, set off by heat, high energy content, nitroglycerine, low

energy content, decomposes violently, needs confinement, low explosive.

11. a) In the 19^th Century, nitroglycerine (NGL) was discovered during the search for what?

b) Why is this a bit of "history repeating itself"? (Look at Q. 4.)

12. The breaking of bonds between what two chemical elements releases the power of NGL?

13. Raw NGL is very unstable but nitrogen triiode is so unpredictable that the touch of what sets it off?

14. The huge force of a high explosive shockwave can be how strong in "atmospheres"?

15. What sad event drove Alfred Noble to control the unpredictable power of NGL?

16. What was the main form of protection around Nobel's many NGL factories?

17. What makes the NGL in sticks of Dynamite less reactive than when it is raw (liquid)?

18. a) Can Dynamite force a building to collapse?

b) Why does Mark Loizeau feel people love to watch a building be demolished?

19. a) Why were some people confused when Nobel bought the Swedish gun manufacturer, Bofors?

b) How did Nobel explain his interest in weapons research and development?

20. How did an obituary accidently printed in a French paper eight years before his death affect Nobel?

21. a) In 1945, what test occurred in a New Mexico desert that would have aroused Nobel's ghost?

b) In an interview twenty years later, what did Robert Oppenheimer seem to think about it?

22. Can the arms race be ended by destroying weapons?