Reply #29: what he said [View All]

[slaveplanet]

I'm with the chemistry professorGAC...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1884749#1885077


TATP Is EXTREMELY Shock Sensitive EXTREMELY. That's why it is only manufactured and handled under incredibly delicate and low volume conditions in industry.

That's my problem with this story, as someone extensively educated in chemistry. The kinds of things that would allow this story to be more than an idle threat by 24 idiots, are very difficult to make efficiently, very difficult to isolate, and very difficult to handle without blowing one's self up. I sincerely do not believe that these guys would make it to the plane with something liek TATP without self-detonating.

In addition, TATP is still a low velocity explosive. It's subsonic in detonation velocity, and does not produce an extensive overpressure wave.
The Professor...


When They're Immersed. . .

. . .they don't detonate. That's how the mass transport is facilitated in industry. Lots of explosive crystals are handled that way. (Most detonation initiators are crystals that can individually detonate if they are just a little too big!) In suspension, or in solution, they will not generate the molcular propogation necessary to detonate. That's why they move them around in slurries. It prevents tragic accidents in industry.

BTW: You do know that when Reid was caught, even the experts, using military detonators could not get his device to explode. It was destroyed because the detonators simply inicinerated the device. The device itself did not detonate.

The Professor