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00:00We're back for an explosive edition of Equinox.
00:30It's not like handling snakes, if I, well, actually, yes, come to think of it, I eat my words, it is rather like handling snakes, if I, through absent-mindedness, or lack of knowledge, or sheer carelessness, do the wrong thing, many of the operations that I perform simply blow me apart.
00:50Mind you, if you blow yourself up properly, I think it's a good way to go. Think of the hospital bills, you say.
01:00Sidney Alford loves explosions. When he's not making secret gadgets for the military, he applies his explosive genius to more mundane matters.
01:10It was an absolutely beautiful garden, except for the swimming pool. So we decided that we would have to get rid of it.
01:18The blokes came with the hammers, and they smashed it up a bit, but they didn't do very much.
01:22It was too strong.
01:22It was too strong, yeah.
01:24And we tried a company called Dam & Blast, who gave us their opinion, but said they couldn't do it.
01:29Yeah, so they'd blow out everyone's windows if they blew it up with them.
01:31Yeah.
01:32So we couldn't use them, could we?
01:33And so finally, in our exasperation, I looked in the yellow pages and found Sidney Alford.
01:41Firing!
01:42Five!
01:44Four!
01:45Three!
01:46Two!
01:47One!
01:48One!
01:49One!
01:50One!
01:51One!
01:51One!
01:52One!
01:53One!
01:54One!
01:55One!
01:56One!
01:57One!
01:58One!
01:59One!
02:00One!
02:01One!
02:02One!
02:03One!
02:04One!
02:05One!
02:06One!
02:07One!
02:08One!
02:09One!
02:10One!
02:11A glorious act of chemical anger, witnessed not from a trench or a foxhole, but from the safety of
02:17a garden.
02:18One!
02:19One!
02:20Two!
02:21One!
02:22One!
02:24One!
02:25One!
02:26One!
02:27One!
02:28Two!
02:29We'd glimpse that dark force, that destroyer of worlds
02:33that so many had tried to tame in the past,
02:37and we were lured by its spell.
02:49Explosive symptoms often begin in adolescence.
02:53Ah, hello. The experiments are very nearly ready.
02:59Ready? Three, two, one.
03:05We have ignition.
03:16Peter Gurney liked to play with rockets as a boy.
03:20It moved.
03:21His ambition was to make a farmer's bike fly.
03:24That certainly brings back memories of the early stages.
03:29When the thing fired, the noise was quite appalling.
03:33There was a tremendous great roar,
03:35and looked up and saw a sodot disappearing into the sky,
03:40which impacted the ground about 200 metres away.
03:43He was shedding bits of bicycle all over the place.
03:45How old were you when you did this prank?
03:47About 14, I think.
03:59Three generations of the Loazzo family have dynamite in their blood.
04:05Aren't all little boys attracted to explosives and whatnot?
04:09I think that's natural, but I know a little girl that was too,
04:12so it's not just boys.
04:15My father said, this is mine, and this one's yours.
04:17Gave me a crew of labors, and sent me on my way with a diagram,
04:21and checked on me quite a bit, but really gave me pretty much free reign there,
04:26and fell in love.
04:27How old were you then?
04:28Fifteen.
04:29Fifteen years old.
04:30When Ron Lancaster was a boy, he became obsessed with fireworks.
04:49Whilst all the other friends that I have obviously lost their interest,
04:55I didn't.
04:57The only explanation I can give you of that is
05:00that once you've smelt black powder,
05:02it's with you for the rest of your life.
05:04In other words, there's a suggestion that, for some people,
05:07it's sort of in the blood,
05:09and that's certainly, without any doubt, the case with me.
05:12Now, it only burns two and a half seconds, one inch of powder, because it's very fast burning.
05:33The fireworks obviously have force.
05:35I mean, you're releasing a tremendous amount of energy.
05:38As the reaction proceeds, the subatomic particles that are involved are getting more and more excited
05:44in order to produce the effects that you are producing.
05:48And whether there is some kind of connection between the various electrons getting excited,
05:54and people getting excited at the same time, I don't know.
05:58But certainly the two things go together, but no doubt about it.
06:05In an unlikely trinity, the Reverend Lancaster used to combine God, fire and brimstone,
06:11until he stopped teaching chemistry to concentrate on his first love, fireworks.
06:24Ron's son, Mark, also has the bug.
06:27After a short spell in the Gurkhas blowing things up,
06:30he came back to help Father with the fireworks.
06:33They're now preparing for the biggest fireworks display this century.
06:38One of the main kinds of fireworks we will be using at VJ Day are star shells.
06:44Star shells, which this is just a baby one,
06:47are a kind of firework which actually get fired out of these mortar tubes.
06:52So you'd place the star shell inside the mortar tube.
06:55And then the gunpowder lifting charge forces this out of the tube,
06:59and the large ones go up to the heights of about 1,000 feet and then explode.
07:06Here we have some of the larger shells that we will actually be using on the tens.
07:11This is an 8-inch shell.
07:13This is one of your specials?
07:14Yes, those are very much my department, yes.
07:18Still, and Mark Lancaster makes them as well.
07:20I'm not sure if it's symbolic, but I've made the 6-inch one,
07:22and he's made an even bigger one, the 8-inch one.
07:24Perhaps when I get older I'll be able to make those as well, but not yet.
07:27To launch it, you actually put it inside this 8-inch mortar
07:33and lower it all the way down to the bottom.
07:35And that means that this mortar will fire the shell up to about 1,000 feet,
07:39and then it explodes, does at least three interesting things before going out,
07:42and has a spread of about 300 feet.
07:44So it's a pretty serious firework.
07:46So it's a pretty serious firework.
08:14Here we go.
08:17Everything is going hot.
08:26Just to reach out.
08:33Here's hooves.
08:35There areitzerland's bears.
08:37There arepción beers.
08:38There are places, here are some of theën and hunters today.
08:41Where they are.
08:43ORCHESTRA PLAYS
09:13It's really like nothing else on earth.
09:29You have to remember that you're standing on a very small, hollow steel barge
09:33with about four tons of explosive surrounding you
09:37with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
09:39And once it starts going off, the whole barge can move up to six inches down in the water.
09:43The sound is unbelievable.
09:45It's wonderful.
09:45You really feel as if you have entertained and earned your keep for the day.
09:50As explosions engulf the London sky, we celebrate the end of a conflict
10:07that saw an escalation of explosive power culminating with the atom bomb.
10:12Indeed, the tarnished history of explosives has been dominated by dangerous experiments
10:21that many perpetrators vainly hoped would never be repeated.
10:25The first explosive mixtures were discovered by accident.
10:36In their search for the elixir of life,
10:399th century Chinese alchemists discovered violent combustion.
10:45An ancient Chinese manuscript describes a dangerous concoction
10:50that burned down an alchemist's hut.
10:52This was a forbidden recipe that only the foolhardy would attempt.
10:59Mix saltpeter with honey, add freshly ground sulphur,
11:05simmer gently, and stand back lest your beard be singed.
11:13Unwittingly, they were producing the earliest form of gunpowder.
11:16Christopher Cullen, an ancient Chinese history scholar,
11:23wanted to try the forbidden experiment with real ingredients.
11:28You're the experienced pyrotechnicist,
11:30so I think we'll trust to your judgment of the proportions.
11:33I would say a little more salver.
11:34All right, let's try a bit more.
11:35A spooklet.
11:36Sidney Olford was sceptical of success.
11:40He thought water in the honey
11:42might dampen any pyrotechnic prospects.
11:46But everyone else was standing well back,
11:48fire extinguishers at the ready.
11:50Now, let's say porridge or soup begins to simmer.
11:55Could I just ask, Dr. Cullen,
11:56I mean, what the evidence is
11:58that the Chinese invented gunpowder?
12:00Well, for a start,
12:02a little before the time of the Battle of Hastings,
12:04there's a book called
12:06The Essentials of the Military Classics
12:08that tells you exactly how to make it,
12:09how to make the fire chemical in detail.
12:13We've also got texts from earlier on
12:15talking about all kinds of mixtures that go off whoosh,
12:18including this one that we're trying here,
12:21which a 9th century text
12:23actually gives in a list of dangerous procedures
12:25that no-one should ever attempt.
12:28How's it going? Any bubbles?
12:30I think I will prefer a longer mixing stick fairly soon.
12:33Right, well, here we are.
12:35Being prudent, our intrepid alchemists
12:38had retired to brew a test batch.
12:41Yes, bubble stuff.
12:42Right the side, we are.
12:43Yes.
12:44That looks a little bit...
12:45This is looking...
12:46Chemistry is just beginning to happen now, yeah?
12:48It's going dark a bit.
12:49Otherwise there'll be an outbreak of chemistry.
12:51Yeah, chemistry.
12:52So far it's just been physics,
12:53you know, warming things up and mixing them.
12:55Excuse me, this is...
12:57These fumes are not water alone.
12:59Look, it's not dispersing, dissipating.
13:01No, no, no, I can see the yellow there.
13:01Something's happening now.
13:02Oh, something is going to happen now.
13:04And there it's very good.
13:07Alchemists playing in the woods.
13:09Some things never change.
13:10I like that.
13:12No, they read the temperature.
13:13Sorry about that.
13:15Sorry about your...
13:15That's good.
13:16...so I told you it would work, didn't I?
13:18Oh, well done.
13:19We never doubted it.
13:20They never believed me.
13:21Look, the greenish...
13:22See, the salt...
13:23The whole aim of all this that's going on here
13:26is to find a way to make the human body
13:30as perfect and as long-lasting as the universe
13:33to achieve physical immortality.
13:35So really, it's the beginnings, ultimately,
13:37of the entire pharmacological industry.
13:40The same basic aim.
13:42Is this what you're trying to achieve, Sidney,
13:43when you make gum powder?
13:44I tend to try to make things explode
13:47rather than achieve immortality,
13:48possibly even limit the mortality of other people.
13:51Yes, that's the awful paradox.
13:52Here they were, trying to find a way
13:55how to make everybody live forever,
13:56and the result is something that kills people.
13:58Sad, isn't it?
14:10From these wildfire adventures,
14:12the Chinese developed the world's first incendiary weapons,
14:16more like flying Roman candles than mortar bombs.
14:22It would be several centuries
14:24before the full explosive power of gunpowder was realised.
14:32The man who lit the fuse of European warfare
14:35was an inquisitive English friar
14:38who began to investigate the magical properties of gunpowder.
14:42When the flame of powder toucheth the soul of man,
14:47it burneth exceeding deep.
14:52In the secrecy of his cell,
14:54Roger Bacon experimented with basic recipes
14:57brought back by medieval travellers from the East.
15:01Making gunpowder burn was easy,
15:04making it explode more difficult.
15:06It was his alchemist's knowledge of the properties of saltpeter
15:12that enabled him to start making the mixture more explosive.
15:15If you throw saltpeter on the fire,
15:25it's very obvious that something special happens.
15:29It causes the fire to burn very fiercely locally,
15:33generate sparks,
15:34and the greater the extent to which saltpeter is purified,
15:40the more violent this reaction.
15:43Saltpeter is very often the white stuff
15:47that you can scrape very fine crystals from the walls of cellars.
15:52It's also the stuff that oozes out of piles of soil and earth,
16:00contaminated with vegetable rubbish.
16:04Saltpeter can be really filthy brown stuff.
16:07By the process of recrystallization,
16:09and chemists owe a lot to him
16:10for having developed the process of crystallization
16:13and recrystallization from a solvent, water,
16:15he was able to produce a white, very consistent solid,
16:19which, in mixture with the others, gave a consistent powder.
16:23Many of the things Roger Bacon tried in 1242,
16:27Sidney Orford repeated as a schoolboy in 1942.
16:31Saltpeter is potassium nitrate,
16:33an oxidizing agent which provides extra oxygen for fast combustion.
16:37By increasing the ratio of saltpeter to charcoal
16:43and confining the powder in a paper tube,
16:46Bacon made his first bang.
16:56Roger Bacon was a scholar
16:58who laid the foundations for modern science.
17:02He always wrote up his experiments,
17:04but his black powder investigations frightened him.
17:10He foresaw the dangers
17:11if this formulation fell into the wrong hands
17:14and decided to encode the recipe
17:16in an anagram in the Latin text.
17:20The passage ends with the words,
17:23And so thou wilt call up thunder and destruction
17:25if thou know the art.
17:28Nothing so dangerous could remain secret.
17:32He knew that the more the powder was confined,
17:34the bigger the explosion.
17:41Gunpowder has two very different ways of burning
17:43according to the degree of confinement.
17:46Now, this gunpowder is essentially similar to that
17:49known to the ancients,
17:51except that the proportion of the components
17:54is better adjusted in this case.
17:58It's better made,
18:00and it will burn correspondingly fast.
18:02On ignition,
18:05this oxygen-rich mixture
18:06unleashes a rapid expansion of hot gases.
18:10If trapped inside a container,
18:13they will cause an explosion.
18:16Now, we should take exactly the same quantity of gunpowder,
18:19but this time confined in a cardboard tube.
18:21The effect will be rather different,
18:24and I think it would be a good idea to do this outside.
18:26This enhanced confinement will increase the speed of burning,
18:37so quite a high pressure can develop,
18:41and should give more oomph,
18:44to use the technical expression.
18:46Fire in four,
18:53three,
18:54two,
18:55one.
18:58Enough oomph
18:59to blast the helmet 50 feet into the air,
19:02and enough oomph
19:03to change the course of European history.
19:06Think of what is shown by the fact that in 1449,
19:20the King of France did a tour of Normandy,
19:22and using his siege train,
19:25knocked down castles held by the English
19:27at the rate of five a month.
19:28It was the death knell of the old feudal system
19:32based on the stone castle,
19:36the mounted knight, and so on,
19:37and the whole social system that went with that.
19:39And what it meant was that
19:41the people who could dispose of the power
19:43to produce gunpowder weapons
19:45were the ones who could control society.
19:53Today, the targets are not castles,
19:56but corporate headquarters.
19:59The enemy, not soldiers,
20:02but innocent victims.
20:05And the knights need no armour.
20:08They are invisible.
20:11They came to the World Trade Center in New York
20:14and the Baltic Exchange in London.
20:17Not far from where they tested the atom bomb,
20:29they are testing a more insidious device,
20:32the terrorist truck bomb,
20:34with 40 bags of fertiliser and fuel oil.
20:37Instead of potassium nitrate,
20:40ammonium nitrate.
20:41Instead of charcoal,
20:43fuel oil.
20:56Slowed down 200 times,
20:58it's possible to see the supersonic shockwave
21:01ripple across the sand
21:02and pass across the New Mexico skyline.
21:07This initial shockwave is what shatters everything.
21:14When the shockwave hits the camera mirror,
21:17it tilts up into the sky.
21:19The air blast which follows as the hot gases expand
21:24spreads debris for half a mile.
21:28Finally, half a second after ignition,
21:31a rock shatters the mirror.
21:32Roger Bacon had felt the terror of gunpowder.
21:44The advent of high explosives
21:46would unleash an even mightier force.
21:48High explosives explode in a different
22:02and more dangerous way.
22:04Some are so unstable
22:06they must be approached on tiptoe.
22:09I'd like to demonstrate an explosive
22:10that I haven't made
22:12and demonstrated for over 20 years now.
22:15Familiar to most schoolboys,
22:16it's called nitrogen triiodide.
22:19Now this is an explosive
22:20composed of nitrogen and iodine
22:22in a very unhappy relationship.
22:23You might describe it
22:24as being a very unhappy marriage.
22:27These elements are just waiting
22:28for an excuse to suddenly burst apart.
22:31It's so sensitive,
22:32so sensitive that even a fly
22:33landing on it might set it off.
22:35So if you'd kindly put on your ear protection
22:38and your eye protection,
22:39I'll now demonstrate.
22:46Nitrogen triiodide is so wild
22:50it will be hard for anyone
22:53to harness its explosive power.
23:03The first practical high explosives
23:05were discovered by accident
23:07when 19th century chemists
23:09began adding nitric acid
23:10to organic compounds
23:12to make new medicines.
23:13In 1846,
23:16the Italian scientist
23:17Ascanio Sobrero
23:18tried adding glycerine
23:19to nitric and sulphuric acid.
23:22By nitrating the glycerine,
23:24he had created
23:25a new oxygen-rich compound
23:26called nitroglycerine.
23:30This was a dangerous liquid
23:32whose rapid chemical breakdown
23:34could be triggered
23:35by heat or shock.
23:37Many chemists
23:39have been mauled
23:40by this beast.
23:40Bob Torrey
23:42has had a few
23:43close shaves himself.
23:45It held
23:46an irresistible fascination.
23:52The power
23:53of nitroglycerine
23:54far surpassed
23:55other explosive materials.
23:58Yes, I suppose
23:59it did have
23:59a certain attraction.
24:02But being a liquid material,
24:03it wasn't very easily handled
24:05and it wasn't very safely handled.
24:10Nitroglycerine
24:12has a mean reputation.
24:17One drop
24:18of its explosive power
24:19can be unleashed
24:20by a hammer blow.
24:27Now, nitroglycerine
24:29and quite a lot
24:31of other explosives
24:32decompose
24:33in a very different way
24:34from gunpowder.
24:36Gunpowder
24:36essentially burns.
24:38People in the trade
24:42use a fancy Latin
24:43word for it,
24:44deflagration,
24:45but it means
24:45no more than burns.
24:47In the case
24:48of nitroglycerine,
24:49however,
24:49the mechanism
24:50is very different.
24:52Not only does
24:53that material
24:54contain much more
24:55chemical energy
24:56for a given mass,
24:58but also
24:58it decomposes
24:59very much more quickly
25:01and this makes
25:02the explosion
25:02much more violent.
25:04This type
25:06of very violent
25:07explosion
25:07is called
25:08a detonation.
25:18Although low
25:19explosives like
25:20gunpowder burn
25:20quickly,
25:22high explosives
25:22go off
25:23a thousand times
25:24faster.
25:24to capture
25:28a moment
25:29of detonation
25:30on film
25:31requires a camera
25:32that can run
25:33at a million
25:33frames per second.
25:42Historically,
25:42the term
25:43high explosive
25:44refers to
25:46an explosive
25:46which is actually
25:47detonating,
25:48whereas the term
25:49a low explosive
25:50refers to
25:51something that's
25:51merely burning
25:52very fast.
25:53And that can
25:54be very fast.
25:55That could be
25:56burning at speeds
25:57of maybe
25:57a thousand meters
25:59per second,
25:59but it's still
26:00just a fast burn.
26:01It isn't actually
26:02detonating.
26:03The process of
26:03detonation
26:04is a very specific
26:05and different
26:06phenomenon.
26:10In the detonation
26:11you have a
26:11supersonic shockwave
26:12travelling through
26:13the explosive
26:13and the shockwave
26:15itself triggers
26:16the reaction
26:17immediately behind it.
26:19So the
26:20decomposition
26:21is not caused
26:22by the conduction
26:23of heat forwards.
26:24It's caused
26:24directly by the
26:25passage of the
26:25shockwave.
26:27So a detonation
26:28is a shockwave
26:29supported by
26:30chemical reaction
26:31just behind it
26:31and it occurs
26:32at a supersonic
26:33speed in the
26:34material.
26:37The father
26:38of high explosives
26:39was Alfred Nobel,
26:41a Swedish
26:42industrialist.
26:44In the 1850s,
26:46gunpowder was
26:47the only available
26:48explosive.
26:49so the commercial
26:52potential for
26:52something more
26:53powerful like
26:54nitroglycerine
26:55was clear.
26:57But perhaps
26:58its tendency
26:59to explode
27:00without warning
27:01made it too
27:02dangerous to
27:02handle.
27:03Danger has
27:05never been a
27:06deterrent among
27:07scientists that
27:09are obsessed by
27:10following an
27:12object to its
27:13end.
27:13on the contrary
27:14it can provide
27:15a powerful
27:16stimulant for
27:17them to tame
27:18a dangerous
27:20substance or
27:22instrument.
27:23If you look at
27:24the work with
27:24the atom bomb
27:25and so on,
27:26you find the
27:26same Madame
27:27Curie in
27:28radium and so
27:29on.
27:29They knew it
27:30was very,
27:30very dangerous
27:31but they still
27:31kept at it.
27:35Alfred realised
27:37that unless
27:37nitroglycerine
27:38could be
27:39detonated reliably
27:40it had no
27:41future.
27:44He experimented
27:45with the idea
27:46of using a
27:46small gunpowder
27:47charge to
27:49act as a
27:49detonator.
27:52These prototypes
27:53were like
27:54giant bangers
27:55with a long
27:56fuse.
27:56it was a
27:59significant
28:00breakthrough.
28:02Without the
28:03invention of
28:03the detonator
28:04handling high
28:06explosives would
28:07have remained a
28:08perilous act.
28:19Although
28:20nitroglycerine was
28:22now much safer
28:22to set off,
28:24it remained a
28:25hazardous substance
28:26to manufacture.
28:33Alfred Nobel
28:34and his family
28:35began producing
28:36nitroglycerine
28:37by the bucket
28:37fool.
28:38He was
28:39tempting fate.
28:42In 1864,
28:43a violent
28:44explosion
28:45destroyed the
28:45laboratory,
28:47killing his
28:47younger brother
28:48Emil.
28:49Alfred was
28:50devastated
28:51but refused
28:52to hold
28:52work on
28:53the evil
28:54oil.
28:54one might
28:57guess that he
28:58was in fact
28:59trying to
29:00conquer the
29:01enemy that
29:03had killed
29:03his younger
29:04brother's life
29:05and to render
29:05this beast
29:07harmless.
29:08And of course
29:09his personality
29:11being what it was,
29:12he went on
29:14regardless of
29:15criticism or
29:17objection from
29:18his family
29:19and so on
29:19because a true
29:20scientist often
29:21has a manical
29:22side to him.
29:25In the next
29:26ten years,
29:27he built
29:27dozens of
29:28nitroglycerine
29:28factories.
29:30Few survive
29:30today,
29:31most have blown
29:32up.
29:33This one in
29:33Norway is a
29:34working museum.
29:37Inside the
29:38reaction vessel,
29:39cooling coils
29:40kept the chemistry
29:41under control.
29:42But if the
29:43temperature rose
29:44by even a few
29:45degrees,
29:45it was time
29:46to run.
29:47All around
29:48the nitroglycerine
29:49plant you will
29:49see barriers
29:50built,
29:52built barriers
29:53to protect
29:54against fragments
29:55because sometimes
29:57they had
29:57explosions and
29:58of course
29:59these explosions
30:00would then
30:01cause a lot
30:02of wooden
30:03pieces being
30:04thrown for
30:04hundreds of
30:05yards through
30:06the air.
30:07To help
30:12avoid accidents,
30:13open pipes
30:14and gravity
30:15controlled the
30:15flow of
30:16nitroglycerine.
30:18Pumping was
30:18out of the
30:19question.
30:20Friction between
30:20moving metal
30:21parts would be
30:22fatal.
30:25The abbreviation
30:27of nitroglycerine
30:29is NGL.
30:31That's why
30:31this strange
30:32device here
30:33is called
30:34angel boogie.
30:37There are no
30:38moving metal
30:39parts.
30:40You see
30:40rubber seal
30:41here,
30:41rubber pipe,
30:43a wooden
30:43clamp.
30:46And the
30:47nitroglycerine
30:47was then
30:48transported
30:48to the
30:50next production
30:51house.
30:53Raw
30:53nitroglycerine
30:54does not like
30:55being moved.
30:57In the
30:571860s it was
30:59killing so many
30:59people that it
31:00was giving
31:01Nobel a bad
31:02name.
31:04Nitroglycerine
31:04was banned
31:05in Britain.
31:07He had to
31:11find a way
31:12of quenching
31:13the oil
31:13and tried
31:15absorbing it
31:16on inert
31:16powders.
31:18One of the
31:19most successful
31:20was a porous
31:21white earth
31:22called Kieselgur
31:23which could
31:24absorb four
31:25times its own
31:26weight of
31:26nitroglycerine.
31:29This was
31:30Nobel's most
31:31famous invention,
31:33dynamite.
31:33It was used
31:36for rock
31:36blasting
31:37everywhere
31:38and made
31:39him one
31:40of the
31:40richest men
31:41in the
31:41world.
31:47Even though
31:48Nobel's
31:49business empire
31:50was huge,
31:51he never
31:51stopped
31:52experimenting.
31:54One night
31:55he was woken
31:56by a sore
31:56cut on his
31:57finger.
31:57He dressed
32:00it with a
32:00protective film
32:01of nitrated
32:02cotton,
32:03a preparation
32:04called
32:04Newskin.
32:07This gave
32:09him the
32:09idea of
32:10mixing a
32:11similar solution
32:11with nitroglycerine.
32:14The result
32:16was blasting
32:17gelatin,
32:18which retained
32:19the power of
32:20nitroglycerine
32:21and was safer
32:22than dynamite.
32:23It is still
32:24used today.
32:31The explosive
32:31we're using
32:32here in the
32:32concrete
32:32cantilevers
32:33is
32:33Gelimax,
32:34which is a
32:34nitroglycerine
32:35based explosive.
32:36It's more
32:36forgiving,
32:37as we say
32:38in the
32:38industry,
32:38than a lot
32:38of other
32:39explosives
32:39because it
32:40will forgive
32:41you if you
32:41don't handle
32:42it quite so.
32:43It will
32:43still get
32:43the job
32:44done.
32:48It's got
32:48a lot of
32:49power,
32:49a lot of
32:50shattering
32:50ability.
32:51The cantilevers
32:52we're dealing
32:52with are highly
32:53reinforced.
32:53They're carrying
32:54a tremendous
32:54load of the
32:5517-story building
32:56above it.
32:56So with all
32:57that reinforcing
32:57steel,
32:58we needed
32:58to be sure
32:59that we took
32:59the cantilevers
33:00out.
33:03We've got
33:03about 1,570
33:06separate charges
33:07in the building
33:08and they're all
33:09wired together
33:10in what is called
33:11parallel series.
33:14Once we push
33:14the button,
33:15all of them
33:16go off
33:17on a given
33:18cue.
33:23The center
33:31will be the
33:31first point
33:32of motion,
33:32the center
33:33of the structure
33:33and it will
33:33walk this
33:34way.
33:35And the
33:35point is
33:36it will
33:36move when
33:37it's ready.
33:37We simply
33:38give it a
33:38bit of a
33:38push and
33:39we wait
33:40for the
33:40structure
33:40to respond
33:41and then
33:41our timing
33:42with delays
33:43moves just
33:44ahead of
33:44what the
33:45structure
33:45is likely
33:46to do.
33:46We call
33:47it cajoling,
33:48forceful
33:48persuasion.
33:49That's what
33:49explosives are
33:50all about.
33:50They're a
33:50catalyst,
33:51nothing more.
33:535,4,3,2,1,
34:01fire.
34:14I think
34:15the fascination
34:15that people
34:16have with
34:16explosives
34:17demolition
34:17is very
34:17similar to
34:18the fascination
34:18that people
34:19have with
34:19car crashes
34:20at racetracks.
34:23People like
34:28to flirt
34:28with danger.
34:29They like
34:30to flirt
34:30with death.
34:34And when
34:34they see
34:35a building
34:35coming down,
34:36they're doing
34:36just that.
34:37They come
34:37out, who
34:38knows, maybe
34:38see us mess
34:39up.
34:40Hopefully
34:40they've got
34:41a long
34:41wait.
34:41explosives are
35:02tools.
35:05It's a tool
35:06that affects
35:06everyone's life.
35:08People don't
35:09realize that the
35:09highways that
35:10they ride
35:11on, the
35:11buildings that
35:12they live
35:12and work
35:13in, were
35:14partially put
35:14there with
35:15explosives, the
35:15quarrying operations
35:16to make the
35:17concrete.
35:18People don't
35:19think about
35:20explosives as
35:20being an
35:21everyday thing.
35:21bomb.
35:22The Loazos have
35:27a new use for
35:28explosives, decommissioning
35:30old Soviet weapons.
35:32In this case,
35:33Hungarian Scud
35:34missile launchers.
35:37NATO top brass will
35:38be coming to witness
35:39the event.
35:41The cabins are going
35:43to go off with such
35:43ferocity that we need
35:45to make sure that it's
35:46not going to affect
35:47any of the later
35:49elements that have
35:50to go off.
35:52Why are the cabins
35:53going to go off so
35:53much?
35:54I mean, is that
35:54because they've got,
35:55what have they got
35:56inside them?
35:56That's a surprise.
36:00Wait and see.
36:02Semtex is a
36:03Czechoslovakian
36:04product and it is
36:05what we in the
36:07industry say, hot.
36:08Because you literally
36:09can mold it.
36:11It is a plastic
36:12explosive.
36:14You can mold it
36:15into any shape that
36:16you want.
36:17It also is forgiving
36:18and that you can
36:22handle it pretty
36:25aggressively.
36:26It's not that it's
36:27difficult to set off,
36:28but nothing that I'm
36:29doing is going to
36:30create a problem,
36:31that's for sure.
36:33It's going to take a
36:33blasting cap or, in
36:35this case, a piece of
36:36detonating cord to set
36:38it off.
36:41This detonating cord
36:42has a core which
36:43burns at 21,000 feet
36:45per second.
36:45and that's appreciably
36:46slower than the
36:47Semtex.
36:48But once the Semtex
36:49gets going, nothing
36:51is going to stop it.
36:52after six centuries of
37:10gunpowder, warfare would
37:13also be transformed by
37:14Nobel's high explosives.
37:16Now, the trouble with
37:18gunpowder as a propellant
37:20for small arms, you can
37:22see, it's that smoke.
37:24You can see it, you
37:25cannot but see it.
37:27Imagine you're firing
37:28with perhaps 20 colleagues
37:29using the same sort of
37:30powder, you can be sure
37:32that the enemy can
37:33most certainly see it.
37:35That's very unhealthy.
37:38Nobel realized that it
37:42would be most advantageous
37:43if he could develop a powder
37:45which didn't produce that
37:46awful smoke.
37:49By mixing nitrocellulose with
37:51nitroglycerine, Nobel was
37:53able to produce a smokeless
37:54powder.
37:57He called it ballastite,
38:00and it's still used today.
38:01Now, smokeless powder has
38:08another very considerable
38:09advantage over gunpowder.
38:12The first bullet I fired
38:14has stopped within this
38:15block.
38:16The second one has gone
38:17through five blocks
38:19and lodged in the sixth.
38:22It has considerably more
38:24penetrating power than the
38:25one driven by black powder.
38:27The reason for which this is
38:29possible is that there's
38:30simply more energy available
38:32in a given mass of powder.
38:34This means that much higher
38:36pressures can be generated
38:37in the breach and, of course,
38:39in the barrel of the weapon,
38:41and, of course, the terminal
38:43effect is much more
38:45devastating.
38:48Nobel saw the opportunity
38:50for making new weapons that
38:52would use his smokeless
38:53munitions, and he bought the
38:56Swedish gun manufacturer Bofors.
39:01However much he loathed the
39:02stigma, he was now an arms
39:04merchant.
39:06Yet he claimed to be a
39:07pacifist.
39:10Now, he explained this
39:12contradiction by saying that
39:15he was trying to perfect the
39:17ultimate weapon so that in this
39:19way he would make war
39:21impossible in the future,
39:23like the atom bomb.
39:25Also, he explained that
39:27they were evil arms,
39:29but they exerted a very
39:31powerful fascination for him.
39:33But I believe that
39:34such an intellectual man
39:36would easily find himself
39:40in a quandary as to his
39:43attitudes on one hand,
39:44the peace advocate,
39:46and on the other hand,
39:47the arms merchant.
39:51Eight years before he died,
39:54Alfred's obituary was
39:55mistakenly printed in a
39:56French newspaper, which
39:58described him as the
39:59merchant of death.
40:02He was haunted by his
40:03posthumous reputation and
40:05resolved to leave a legacy
40:07that would never be
40:08forgotten, the Nobel Peace
40:10Prize.
40:12Further awards would honour
40:14excellence in literature,
40:15science, and medicine.
40:18This was how he wanted to be
40:20remembered.
40:22He became obsessed with his
40:24own death.
40:26He endured terrible headaches
40:28from his nitroglycerine.
40:30Yet, ironically, later in
40:32life, he had to take it as a
40:33medicine for his heart
40:35disease.
40:38Nobel had built an empire
40:40founded on an unstable
40:42molecule which would kill
40:44millions of people.
40:45He was a lonely man, tortured
40:50by his own success.
40:53His conscience would never be
40:55clear.
40:55Millions of tons of high
41:22explosives were fired in the
41:23first world war.
41:25It was a stark equation, one
41:28tonne of munitions for each
41:29human life lost.
41:33Over the century, the roll call
41:35of high explosives lengthened.
41:37TNT, amytol, torpex, semtex,
41:41each growing in chemical
41:42complexity and power.
41:43I should like to be able to
41:48create a substance or a
41:50machine with such a horrific
41:51capacity for annihilation that
41:54wars would become impossible
41:55forever.
41:56You are here to participate in an atomic
42:07maneuver.
42:09Atomic weapons are truly powerful, but
42:12they don't mean the end of all life
42:14as so many people think.
42:16You can live through an atomic
42:18attack, and by taking common sense
42:20precautions, live to fight another
42:23day.
42:24Watched from a safe distance, this
42:27explosion is one of the most
42:29beautiful sights ever seen by man.
42:32You're probably saying, so it's
42:35beautiful.
42:36What makes it so dangerous?
42:37You can have a chemical explosion
42:41in which the heat and gas is
42:43produced by the energetic
42:45decomposition of a material, an
42:48explosive, or you can have a
42:51nuclear explosion where the product
42:52is really just energy.
42:54There is no gas given out as such
42:58in the course of a nuclear
42:58explosion, and the blast that you
43:00get from a nuclear explosion is
43:01purely caused by vaporization of
43:04the surroundings.
43:07And what's happened is there has
43:13been direct conversion of mass
43:14into energy by Einstein's famous
43:16equation, E equals mc squared, and
43:19that is where the energy has come
43:20from.
43:20It's only a fraction of the mass of
43:22the original atom that's been
43:23lost, but that fraction, when you
43:25sum it over all the atoms of
43:27plutonium or uranium in a nuclear
43:30device, that provides a huge amount
43:31of energy.
43:32Bacon and Nobel would have recognized
43:39Robert Oppenheimer's symptoms, that
43:41irresistible urge to witness a new
43:44form of explosive power.
43:46This time it was a bigger bang in a
43:49bigger backyard, but the dream was the
43:51same, a belief that the experiment was
43:54so dangerous it would never be
43:56attempted again.
43:59Before dawn, on July 16th, 1945, at the
44:03Alamogordo Army Air Base in New Mexico, a
44:06small band of...
44:07After the bombs had been dropped on
44:09Japan, the scientists returned to
44:11restage the first test for the cameras.
44:14Two minutes to go.
44:19Stretched out on the sand, tensely
44:21expectant, were General Groves, Dr.
44:24Bush, and Dr. Conant.
44:27In the control shack was Dr. J.R.
44:29Oppenheimer, who, assisted by Dr. I.
44:32Robbie and others, had directed the
44:34making of the bomb itself.
44:36The automatic control's got it now.
44:39Rob, this time the stakes are really
44:41high.
44:42It's going to work all right, Robert,
44:45and I'm sure we'll never be sorry for
44:47it.
44:47When they first started planning these
44:48tests, there was some fairly strong
44:50consideration that the detonation of the
44:51nuclear weapon would start an
44:52atmospheric chain reaction, and
44:55obviously that would be the end of the
44:57world, but the calculations that they
44:59did at that time showed quite
45:01conclusively that there was no danger
45:03of an atmospheric chain reaction, but
45:04it was a worry to begin with.
45:06Minus 10 seconds.
45:11Minus 5 seconds.
45:12Minus 5 seconds.
45:13Minus 6 seconds.
45:13Minus 6 seconds.
45:14Minus 6 seconds.
45:14Minus 5 seconds.
45:15Minus 5 seconds.
45:17Minus 6 seconds.
45:17When it went off in that New Mexico dawn,
45:19that first atomic bomb, we thought of
45:22Alfred Nobel and his hope, his vain hope,
45:26that dynamite would put an end to all wars.
45:29the outtakes from this atomic melodrama are painful to watch the pathos of the script
45:41all too obvious to Oppenheimer the automatic controls got it this time Rob stakes are kind
45:52of high oh it's going to work all right Robert and I'm sure we'll never be sorry for it cut
45:59this time Rob mistakes are pretty high it's going to work all right Robert and I'm sure we'll never
46:10be sorry for it the truth came out 20 years later a few people laughed a few people cried most people
46:23were silent I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture of the Bhagavad Gita Vishnu is trying to
46:39persuade the prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says
46:53now I am become death the destroyer of worlds I suppose we all thought that one way or another
47:03in the nuclear standoff which followed there were times when the end of the world did seem close
47:12here the Cold War was a war of words a war which never happened now the old weapons are lined up
47:20linked by shock tube and semtex awaiting public annihilation
47:50this is a large megaphone and it's gonna focus a lot of sound directly at the audience right at the
47:59audience right there oh they're gonna like this a lot yeah what do you put inside everything everything
48:12we have left over we're gonna make up like a mortar project sound and a lot of sparks and stuff like
48:18that that's the finale why not
48:21can it be that simple is that the end
48:42the search for the ultimate explosion will not stop and one day there'll be another experiment that
48:53will wish had never been attempted the nuclear explosions as we have done them so far are the
48:59most powerful explosions yet created that's not the same as saying that they are the ultimate in
49:06terms of explosive power if you think about what's happening in a nuclear explosion you are only
49:10converting a fraction of the mass into energy and theoretically speaking at least you could consider
49:17converting rather more of the mass into energy and in the extreme case you could consider converting
49:22all the mass into energy and that type of reaction would be for example a matter antimatter reaction where
49:29you get total annihilation and entire conversion to to energy now in principle that would be obviously a
49:36far more energetic process I mean you're talking about total annihilation of everything no just total
49:42annihilation of the matter and anti-matter that comprised your bomb
49:45that's all
49:49a
49:56the
49:58the
49:59the
50:01the
50:02the
50:03the
50:05the
50:07the
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