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[ A VAGUE HISTORY
OF THINGS THAT EXPLODE ] Mike
Hovancsek
In the beginning there was nothing but deep,
black, infinite darkness. It was the kind of darkness that makes a rainy day
in Antarctica feel like a stroll on the sun; It was the kind of darkness that only people who were
born without eyes could understand; It was really
fucking dark. One day,
God said “Let there be light”. Well, he didn’t actually say “Let there be light”, I mean, this was billions and billions
of years before language existed.
Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was there to get a direct quote from
the guy. For all I know, he actually
said something like “Ramma Lamma Ding Dong” or “Pass the ketchup”. Anyway, at God’s command, all matter became
compressed into an infinitely small point by an infinitely large
gravitational force until there was a great explosion. The explosion was brighter than a thousand Las
Vegases; It was brighter than a million Hawaiian shirts; It was bright in exactly the same way that it wasn’t before. The massive heat from this explosion created all
the elements that make up life as we know it. All things (including every atom in your body) were created in
that instant. This was the birth of
everything. The explosion is still going on, too. At this very moment, all matter is hurling
through space at an incredible rate of speed, racing away from the epicenter
of the explosion. Every solar system,
planet, asteroid; every salt shaker, bicycle, and garden hose in the universe
is nothing more than shrapnel, hurled indifferently through space by the
force of the blast. That’s how the theory goes. Things went pretty well for a while: Solar systems formed, planets appeared,
early life forms evolved, civilization developed… Then, in the 9th century, two Chinese alchemists began working
on a concoction that was supposed to promote eternal life. They mixed sulfur, salt peter, and honey
over a fire. The combination
immediately burst into flames and burned down their hut. So the alchemists, in an attempt to invent a
potion that would allow people to live forever, invented gun powder instead (Of course, they didn’t actually call it gun powder. Guns weren’t invented until hundreds of
years later, for Christ’s sake). Realizing that they had stumbled upon something
extremely dangerous, the two men recorded the discovery in their notes,
warning their readers not to reproduce the experiment under any
circumstances. What happens when you
tell people not to do something? More history happened. Empires rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Someone built a wall, someone else knocked
it down… Stuff like that… Then, Roger Bacon, an English friar - a
man of God - made a little discovery in 1242. He purified salt peter, mixed it with sulfur, packed it into a
paper tube, and ignited it. As it
turns out, while gun powder burns very quickly (as our Chinese friends found
out), confined gun powder explodes. Realizing the danger of this
information, Roger Bacon documented his discovery in a Latin anagram. This attempt to conceal his information
failed, of course, and Bacon’s discovery led to… the end of feudalism. The swords, armor, and stone walls of that era
were suddenly obsolete once explosives were used against them. It was an all new ball game at that
point. Suddenly, killing people on a
battlefield was as easy as killing ants with a chain saw. The following centuries saw the spread of this
technology across the planet. In addition to primitive bombs that were used
for military purposes, Arabian writings from the 1300’s described a bamboo
tube, reinforced with iron, that was used to fire arrows at advancing
armies. A similar contraption was
used by Chinese soldiers to fire rocks at their opponents by the middle of
that same century. These gun prototypes were advanced in the 14th
century by a German monk by the name of Berthold Schwartz who developed the
basic firearm design that is still in use today. Apparently, he worked on his design when he wasn’t busy praying
and studying the Bible. Everyone needs a hobby. So people were having a grand old time; blowing
each other to bits and firing off guns at one another. For a while it seemed that life couldn’t
get any better. Then, life got better… Gun powder is known as a low explosive because it
has to be confined to explode. In
1858, however, an Italian scientist by the name of Ascanio Sobrero mixed
nitric and sulfuric acids with glycerin in an attempt to develop a headache
medication. This unhappy marriage of
elements formed a high explosive called “nitroglycerin”. Nitroglycerin is extremely unstable. Simple agitation of its elements can cause
an explosion, even in open space.
Ascanio learned this the hard way:
His face was disfigured when a test tube full of nitroglycerin exploded
in his lab. Disturbed, he declared
that nitroglycerin was too unstable to have any practical applications. A few years later, a young Swedish scientist by
the name of Alfred Nobel started refining nitroglycerin. He began experimenting in his lab and
found a number of ways to control and manufacture it for marketing
purposes. He had factories built and
began selling his product around Europe.
After having some initial success with his business, Alfred traveled
to the United States to convince government and industrial leaders that his
nitroglycerin was a safe product.
This trip was marred, however, because, while Alfred was trying to
convince the United States that his product was safe, his factories in Europe
kept exploding. These accidents indicated
that more stability was required for the substance to be marketable on a
larger scale. By adding porous clay to nitroglycerin, Alfred
Nobel found that he could stabilize it.
Alfred was a pacifist. He was
also a capitalist. What happens when
you mix nitroglycerin, capitalism, and pacifism? You get dynamite. Alfred’s invention made him the richest man in the
world. It also made him the biggest
pacifist arms merchant in history.
There was one side product of Alfred’s experiments with explosives: His brother, Emil, was killed in an
explosion when Alfred hired him to develop a more potent version of
nitroglycerin. Sometimes things happen on the way to
the bank. Alfred’s factories were very productive. They produced one ton of explosives for
every casualty in World War One, earning an obscene amount of money in the
process. The death business is very
lucrative. It always has been. Despite his resounding success in the business of
death and destruction, Albert felt unfulfilled. In a letter to his brother he stated that he wanted to be
remembered as a man whose virtues included “keeping his nails clean and never
being a burden to anyone”. In the
same letter he listed his greatest wish as “to not be buried alive”. Eight years before his death, a newspaper
mistakenly printed Alfred’s obituary, describing him as “The Merchant of
Death”. He was deeply troubled by
this. As Alfred grew older and his
health began to decline, he quit focusing on the business of mass, efficient
death and became obsessed with his own personal demise. Not only did he have to deal with the
realization that he had contributed to thousands of deaths in the course of
his career, he also had to contend with his own declining health. He was plagued with terrible headaches
(which were the result of years of
tasting nitroglycerin to ensure its purity). He was also suffering from chest pains. What did doctors prescribe him for his
medical problems? Nitroglycerin tablets.
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