28-03-2005 09:07									#1
	Should I encourage this? Remove this text

I'm bored and most of the college has gone home for Easter (I'm Orthodox, ours won't be for another three weeks or so). So there aren't many people around, which means...YEP! No witnesses for idiotic hijinks!

A bunch of my roommate's friends got the idea of setting off condom-bombs for entertainment. A condom-bomb being a free, cheap Lifestyles condom, thoughtfully provided by the basketfull in our bathroom, inflated by spraying it full of deodorant and cologne, then taken outside and placed on the grass (it's been raining on and off all night). Roll up a paper towel into a "fuse," stick one end under the condom, and light it. Then run.

It doesn't actually explode, it just sprays fire around from the hole initially burned in the latex. As the hole grows, the flame finds more outlets and gradually turns into a smaller, conventional blaze before withering away in a final gasp of toxic fumes.

Yes, I watched; I wasn't sure what it would do, so I watched from a heckuva distance away, but I watched. It occurred to me that this was a remarkable demonstration of the different kinds of intelligence: the ingenuity needed to think up such a scheme, combined with the lack of sophistication needed to find it amusing after the fifth time and the lack of common sense to ignore the safety risks in hanging around a few feet from burning chemicals.

Then it came to me, with the keen wasted insight of my obsessive autistic mind, that there were very simple ways to improve the design. I know salt burns with a colored flame, and sugar leads to a more sustained burn than the brief flareout of alcohols. A little wikipedia for chemistry and the history of pyrotechnics, a little cautious experimentation, and one could conceivably create modestly impressive fireworks out of ingredients available to bored college students.

This is a largely academic question since I sense that these guys have already gotten bored and have now switched to stomping on plastic easter eggs trying to make them pop, but would such an implementation be a valid use of science to enrich our lives or a reckless misuse of our gifts? What would you do in such a situation? Discuss.

But first note that all discussion should be facetious in tone, as I am not actually going to encourage behavior that could result in brush fires and/or brain damage.

	28-03-2005 09:12									#2
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Result in brain damage?



ACK!

	28-03-2005 09:16									#3
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If you read the post more carefully, you'll notice that I didn't, strictly speaking, rule out brain damage as a cause. This could be a feedback-loop sort of thing, the chicken or the egg, however you want to think of it.

	28-03-2005 09:28									#4
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**** that **** lets make dynamite!

	28-03-2005 14:20									#5
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when I was a kid we had this idea to throw an aerosol can(spray paint I believe) into a fire we set in a wash tunnel. I knew it would explode, so I told my friend to run like hell after we throw in in. We ran like hell, and yes it exploded. I do remember a piece of shrapnel flying past us. But we were unhurt.

But we had a good excuse. We were young . I would never do this today.

	28-03-2005 14:32									#6
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I got detention at school for spraying deodorant into a plastic bag, then setting light to the bag. I had no idea what was going to happen, so of course I got my friend to hold it I was rather dissapointed when it only burned through the bit we lit.

Ive got some butane round here somewhere, I wonder if that would go up better in a condombomb

	28-03-2005 18:07									#7
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Go for it, Elok

When I was young and stupid...ehrm...bored I used to make pipe bombs using sugar and fertilizer packed in a small steel tube. It made a helluva bang and was (of course) insanely dangerous. But I have all of my fingers intact

	28-03-2005 23:39									#8
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Are you mad? I would never do something this stupid and dangerous. That's what friends of friends are for.

	29-03-2005 00:19									#9
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Aww, come on. You know you want to...

	29-03-2005 00:50									#10
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@Kamrat X

Which type of fertiliser ? Nitrogenous ?

Would potassium nitrate do ?

In the ratio

KNO3:sugar = 3:1 ?

Wetted , of course , with alcohol . With a semi-solid plug of sugar+KMnO4+alcohol ( just for the sparks ? ) .

What do you say ?

Last edited by aneeshm on 29-03-2005 at 00:56

	29-03-2005 01:32									#11
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The sound of experience.

	29-03-2005 03:15									#12
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aneeshm, it sound about right. But I haven´t dabbled in explosives for like 20 years so the chemistry is a bit rusty

	29-03-2005 03:38									#13
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Hey Elok, come join the party.

	29-03-2005 03:46									#14
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No thanks, this is turning into the kind of party that will earn me my own file with the FBI. I only wanted to discuss recreational explosives manufactured from random dorm junk and intended for mindless recreation.

	29-03-2005 03:47									#15
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I meant my thread.

	29-03-2005 03:50									#16
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You must patent it if your contraceptive fireworks are good