Underwater Explosion

I spent about two hours preparing the ingredients for this little show. Which turned out all right, but I knew what It would look like.

 

This is a picture of a small ~50mg charge of silver acetylide detonating under water. It creates a small cavitation bubble which collapses and expands as it travels along.

 

I have seen this effect in the videos by Destin on Smarter Every day when he fired an AK-47 under water. It's a completely counter-intuitive effect which is amazing to see.

 

The explosive is kind of useless (because it's too sensitive) primary made by bubbling acetylene gas through a solution of silver nitrate. It's very sensitive to heat so I used an electric match (steel wool wrapped around wires) to fire it. I only made up a small amount (~1gram) and am not sure if I want it sitting around since I have no idea about it's storage properties...

 

As you can see in the video the explosion broke the seal on the plastic container, so if I want to try this again I'll need to make a new container.

 

1/7500 sec 6000fps ASA 400 17mm f/2.8

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Uploaded on February 1, 2014
Taken on February 1, 2014