Author: Arthur Pine Van Gelder
Publisher:
Published: 1927
Total Pages: 1210
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A narrative history of the explosives industry in the United States and Canada that discusses the technical development of the industry as well its commercial history.
Author: Arthur Pine Van Gelder
Publisher:
Published: 1927
Total Pages: 1132
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Brenda J. Buchanan
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-12-05
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 1351931903
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Gunpowder studies are still in their infancy despite the long-standing civil and military importance of this explosive since its discovery in China in the mid-ninth century AD. In this second volume by contributors who meet regularly at symposia of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), the research is again rooted in the investigation of the technology of explosives manufacture, but the fact that the chapters range in scope from the Old World to the New, from sources of raw materials in south-east Asia to the complications of manufacture in the West, shows that the story is more than the simple one of how an intriguing product was made. This volume is the first to develop the implications of the subject, not just in the sense of relating it to changing military technologies, but in that of seeing the securing of gunpowder supplies as fundamental to the power of the state and imperial pretensions.The search for saltpetre, for example, an essential ingredient of gunpowder, became a powerful engine of sea-going European trade from the early seventeenth century. Smaller states like Venice were unable to form these distant connections, and so to sustain a gunpowder army. Stronger states like France and Britain were able to do so, and became even more powerful as the demand for improved explosives fostered national strengths - leading to a development of the sciences, especially chemistry, in the former case, and of manufacturing techniques in the latter.
Author: G. I. Brown
Publisher: History PressLtd
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780750937924
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →'Great blasts from the past and how it all started with a few fireworks' THE GUARDIAN
Author: Simon Quellen Field
Publisher:
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781613738054
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Field takes readers on a decades-long journey through the history of things that go boom. From the early days of black powder to today's modern plastic explosives, he details now just the who, when, and why, but also the how. He explains how explosives work on a molecular scale, and gives readers a basic understanding of the chemistry that makes them possible.
Author: Simon Quellen Field
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-07-01
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 1613738080
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Black powder, the world's first chemical explosive, was originally developed during the Tang dynasty in China.It was a crude mixture at first, but over time chemists discovered the optimum proportion of sulfur, charcoal, and nitrates, as well as the best way to mix them for a complete and powerful reaction. Author and chemistry buff Simon Quellen Field takes readers on a decades-long journey through the history of things that go boom, from the early days of black powder to today's modern plastic explosives. Not just the who, when, and why, but also the how. How did Chinese alchemists come to create black powder? What accidents led to the discovery of high explosives? How do explosives actually work on a molecular scale? Boom! The Chemistry and History of Explosives reviews the original papers and patents written by the chemists who invented them, to shed light on their development, to explore the consequences of their use for good and ill, and to give the reader a basic understanding of the chemistry that makes them possible.
Author: Jack Kelly
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2009-04-27
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0786739002
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →When Chinese alchemists fashioned the first manmade explosion sometime during the tenth century, no one could have foreseen its full revolutionary potential. Invented to frighten evil spirits rather than fuel guns or bombs-neither of which had been thought of yet-their simple mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal went on to make the modern world possible. As word of its explosive properties spread from Asia to Europe, from pyrotechnics to battleships, it paved the way for Western exploration, hastened the end of feudalism and the rise of the nation state, and greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution. With dramatic immediacy, novelist and journalist Jack Kelly conveys both the distant time in which the "devil's distillate" rose to conquer the world, and brings to rousing life the eclectic cast of characters who played a role in its epic story, including Michelangelo, Edward III, Vasco da Gama, Cortez, Guy Fawkes, Alfred Nobel, and E.I. DuPont. A must-read for history fans and military buffs alike, Gunpowder brings together a rich terrain of cultures and technological innovations with authoritative research and swashbuckling style.