The lid of the trash can would normally reach 60 or 70 feet

That brings back memories of a story my friend Joachim, a machinists apprentice in Germany, told me. He and his cousin went out in the countryside and built a campfire in a firepit with a cooking grille. They suspended a bottomless 55 gallon oil drum over the grille. Then they took a coffee can with a tight fitting lid, filled it half full of gasoline, put the lid on it, and set it on the grille. When the gasoline boiled, it blew the lid off the coffee can which filled the oil drum with gasoline vapors which in turn promptly ignited. He said the oil drum went so high in the air that it was just a little speck, turning end over end. The noise was pretty impressive, too.

Another little prank that would have ended his apprenticeship had they known who to blame... he welded up a box out of 6mm plate steel, about 15 centimeters on a side. He drilled and tapped a hole in one face of the box, filled the box full of water (about three liters), screwed a bolt into the tapped hole, and tossed the box into the annealing oven during lunch break just to see what would happen. The results exceeded all expectations -- the door of the oven was blown right off its hinges and across the room. Reminiscent of another experiment back in 1896... here.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"