• altphoto@lemmy.today
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    3 days ago

    Dynamite TNT. In 1863 Julius Wilbrand synthesized trinitrotoluene (TNT) while experimenting with new yellow dyes for the textile industry.

    • altphoto@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      And I was just now years old when I learned that TNT is not dynamite:

      Dynamite wasn’t exactly an accident, but a deliberate invention by Alfred Nobel, born from a tragic accident: his nitroglycerin factory exploded, killing his brother. This spurred Nobel to tame the volatile liquid; he discovered that mixing nitroglycerin with an absorbent material like diatomaceous earth (kieselguhr) created a stable, putty-like paste that could be formed into sticks, making it safe to transport and detonate controllably with a blasting cap, a discovery patented in 1867.

      So TNT is the stable trinitrotoluene while dynamite is the less stable nitroglycerin.