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Scientists test medieval gunpowder recipes with 15th-century cannon replica
- cs702 5y agoWhat fun! I can only imagine how the funding proposal might have been evaluated: "Hmm... so these guys want us to give them money to fire a bunch of medieval cannons with pre-industrial gunpowder."
- bfbelmont 5y agoI'd fund it as long as I get to see the results in person:)
- setgree 5y agoShout out to the novel Blood Meridian, in which the main characters brew gun powder from volcanic ash, urine, and other things on hand
- pault 5y agoAlso the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Sabotage of gunpowder stocks, exploding cannons (and cannon operators), and brewing red phosphorus from urine (and subsequently getting run out of town by an angry mob because of the stench).
- seer 5y agoWell Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” awakened all sorts of engineering thinking in me when I was very little. My parents were believers in not reading children’s books but actual novels to me, at ages 4+ and they went through most of Verne’s novels, but I will never forget that particular one. Bootstrapping civilization from literally nothing to gunpowder, steam engines and telegraphs was mesmerizing. I think this was the time I decided I wanted to get involved in engineering in general. I mean McGyver is nice and all but I’ve not seen anything come close to scope and ingenuity as a literary work since.
- sneeeeeed 5y agoThey say “don’t eat these recipes” but gunpowder has been used in cookery for a very long time. Corned beef recipes used gunpowder, for instance.
- scohesc 5y agoInteresting! Was that for flavor, texture, or explosive properties when going through your digestive system?
- GordonS 5y agoI thought it acted as a preservative?
- morsch 5y agoMakes sense, in fact it seems the ingredients are all still individually in use as food additives, if rarely.
- dogorman 5y agoPotassium nitrate (the main ingredient of gunpowder) has historically been used as a preservative, particularly for curing meat. Some people might still use it, but these days sodium nitrite is more common.
- throwaway20222 5y agoIt’s what gives certain meats looked corned beef that distinct “pink” color.
- hilbert42 5y agoIt's just occurred to me that humans likely found out that KNO3 acted as a preservative/curing agent when gunpowder got accidentally mixed with food provisions. I can imagine on board some old war galleon or with army materiel that gunpowder accidentally spilt on foodstuffs and someone discovered its preserving properties. Does anyone know if this happened (it seems a plausible idea to me)?
- brudgers 5y agoYes, your highness, ten hogshead fine brandy. ‘Tis essential for powder making. Hic.
- bserge 5y agoBrandy grants increased accuracy due to synergy with the other ingredients :)
- Centmo 5y agoWhen I was thirteen, I had the brilliant idea to make my own gunpowder and use it to build a bomb to set off in the field across from my house. I looked up the recipe in my Encyclopedia Brittanica (this was the early 80's) and began collecting the ingredients. I will never forget the ratios: 75% Potassium Nitrate, 15% Charcoal, 10% Sulpher. After pulverizing the ingredients and combining, I funneled the mixture into a spent CO2 cartridge from a pellet gun. I inserted a sparkler as a fuse, and lay it up against a large tree. I lit the sparkler and ran around to the other side to wait for the explosion. After a painfully long wait, I heard a loud hissing sound and saw some something fly and land right at my feet, a jet of flames shooting out the tiny hole. I took off running but it never exploded. I was old enough to realize I had won a dice roll and never played with gunpowder again.
- packet_nerd 5y agoHa! Around that age (actually probably a little older) I begged and pleaded with my mom to get saltpeter and sulfur to make firecrackers and rockets. Eventually she relented and got it for me, but with the stipulation I had to wear a welding helmet, heavy coat, and heavy rubber gloves while working with it, and that only under supervision... Anyway, the actual gunpowder I managed to make didn't really work, just kind of fizzled out. I never managed to get a firecracker to actually make any noise. It sure was a lot of fun though. :-)
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoCall your mom and tell her someone on the internet said she's awesome.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat sounds like you did alright at the making gunpowder stage but failed the containment stage. Pretty close though, so maybe you got lucky!
- withinboredom 5y agoI had a similar experience, but with napalm.
- hilbert42 5y agoSeems to me that 'adding' the brandy might have been just an excuse to syphon at least some of it off for more traditional purposes. :-)
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoBrandy? Maybe as a solvent to release some other ingredient from whatever form they found it. For example saltpeter was found under wagonloads of dung I believe - maybe the brandy was used to purify it somehow.
- eutectic 5y agoWater can dissolve KNO3, and ethanol can dissolve sulfir (slightly) and tar from the charcoal, so maybe it helped create a more intimate mix? It would also have kept down sparks and reduced the chance of ignition while mixing and grinding.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoOh I like that - safety while compounding must have been a huge issue.
- swayvil 5y agoI never had much luck making gunpowder. I did have success making chinese flash powder (potassium chlorate + sulfer iirc). Good fuse from hobby shop (for Estes rockets I guess). CO2 cylinder. It's a nice little bomb
- fsckboy 5y ago> Gunpowder...is only humanity’s second great experiment (after fire) with harnessing chemical energy is this true? how about adding salt to ice to make it colder? fermentation creates heat, was it ever scavenged for anything? Just curious but it seems like there might have been some other thermic chemistry over the years.
- rainbowzootsuit 5y agoJules Verne's "The Mysterious Island" had the castaways make nitroglycerin from animal fat and gun cotton as well. Highly recommend.