Dynamite: The Controlled Explosion | S28-E1

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1846, an Italian chemist discovered the volatile compound nitroglycerine, the first major breakthrough in creating man-made explosions since the invention of gunpowder a thousand years earlier. But almost everyone who experiments with the compound thinks it’s too dangerous for any commercial application–everyone except for one brooding, obsessed young Swedish inventor named Alfred Nobel.

Nobel dreams of harnessing the chemical’s power to ignite an engineering revolution: blasting railway tunnels, digging out mines and canals…. But as Nobel’s quest to tame nitroglycerine becomes increasingly central to his family’s livelihood, it also repeatedly puts his own life in danger.

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Transcript

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0:14.2	podcasts.
0:17.0	It's the winter of 1846 in a chemistry lab at the College of France in Paris.
0:30.0	It's early evening, most of the staff has gone home for the day.
0:34.0	In the corner of the lab, surrounded by vials and beakers,
0:37.8	dimly illuminated by the flickering of candlelight,
0:40.7	the Italian chemist, Alfansé Subrero, works intently at the lab bench, his assistant
0:46.6	at his side.
0:48.7	Subrero uncorks a vial of nitric acid and holds it up to the light. Older nitric acid has a yellow sheen, but this
0:56.8	sample is as clear as water. Read the day's notes back to me. His assistant flips his notebook back a page.
1:04.3	2 PM applied nitric acid and sulfuric acid to sugar, kept compound chilled, when roughly
1:11.4	shaken with clamps it elicited a small explosion.
1:14.6	3 PM applied nitric acid and sulfuric acid to dextrine, chilled again
1:20.9	when shaken a small explosion.
1:23.6	Sabrero grunts as his assistant reads.
1:26.4	He's trying to create an explosive that's safer than gunpowder.
1:30.4	So far, all the compounds he's concocted have been safer, but not nearly as potent.
1:36.0	Current time is 4 p.m.
1:39.0	What are we trying next?
	...

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