I'm not a bomb expert but any "bomb" powered by a 9 volt battery. . .

[wndycty]

. . .can't do too much damage. I actually don't know if the police over reacted, but the press is sure over reacting. I'm watching MSNBC coverage of the Boston press conference where they are holding up the "bomb" and can't belief that they keep treating this as breaking news.

ON EDIT: As evidenced by the responses I am not a bomb expert. YIKES!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. A bomb powered by a nine volt batter could level a city.

The battery just powers the trigger. You could use a wind up alarm clock. It's the explosives that matter with regard to the power of a bomb.


Yeesh.

[yellowcanine]

9. Or a watch battery. It is the bomb that matters not the battery used for the detonater.

Even a small electrical charge can generate enough heat to set off a detonater.

[lateo]

20. Right.

It isn't the battery you need to worry about.

[Richard Steele]

2. In an actual bomb, the size of the battery has NOTHING to do with the size of the explosion. nm

[Bandit]

3. You are correct you are not an expert

It takes very little voltage to set off the cap which in turn sets off the explosion. Usually they use a single D cell battery which is only 1.5 volts.. It is the blasting cap that sets off the explosion and not the battery..

[ProfessorGAC]

12. There Is, In This Order

. . .a triggering mechanism, an initiator, and a propagator. There are three parts to any real explosive device. Low velocity explosions, subsonic like gunpowder, don't really propogate. The conflagrate.

Not disagreeing. Amplifying your point.
The Professor

[EnviroBat]

32. I think there might be some guys in dark suits knocking at your door shortly.

You know to much...

[Lance_Boyle]

4. Batteries don't power bombs. They power triggers.

A lump of C4 the size of the standard "egg" of silly putty would be pretty effin' destructive.

[hobbit709]

5. A triple A battery could be used

The battery has nothing to do with the size of the boom.

[valerief]

6. On the Sarah Silverman Show, one of her friends didn't even need

a battery to trigger a bomb. He just farted one out into a police car, jumped out, and shut the door quickly. Of course, the cops interrogated and beat him about "the bomb."

[DavidDvorkin]

7. A gun powered by the tiny spring that pulls the hammer forward couldn't hurt anyone

[The Traveler]

8. 9 volt batteries

I know of several commercial grade detonators that use 9 volt batteries. (Used mostly in construction industy.) The battery charges up a capacitor, which is discharged suddenly when you push da button. I can understand therefore the initial concern of security pesonnel.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Sorry. Wrong

The battery just triggers the device. There's only a total of 18 volts in a nuclear trigger.

The Professor

[wndycty]

14. Does this mean I need to give up my hopes of being a counter terrorism expert?

:kick:

How have you been?

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Been Ok

And yes. You need to keep that day job.

GAC

[qdemn7]

30. Well no...

But don't take any jobs that requires "knowledge of explosives".

[MadHound]

11. No, you apparently aren't a bomb expert

The electrical impulse from a battery isn't what determines the size of an explosion. That is determined by the quantity and quality of your bomb material, is it gunpowder, C-4, etc. All that the nine volt battery is used for is to provide the spark that sets off the bomb.

[YOY]

13. You don't even need a battery

Every see a stick of dynamite with wick? Nitro glycerine can blow up from being jostled inccorectly.

It's not the battery that makes the boom, it just triggers the chemical reaction that is the boom.

[Xenotime]

15. There sure seems to be a lot of "bomb experts" on DU

What do you all due in yor free time?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Read books.

Understand how things around us work. Lightbulbs. Motors. Things like that.

[Xenotime]

22. I understand how things work........that I fucking use!

If you use a bomb everyday in your life, OK. You know what you are talking about. And, that's the second part of my statement. Why would somebody like that be on DU? Democrats are for peace.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

26. I use batteries in every day life.

It doesn't take a bomb expert to understand that when batteries blow up, they don't flatten buildings. It's explosives that do that. One doesn't have to be a warmongering fascist republican to understand basic electronics, physics, and chemistry. Just a rational, literate adult.

[YOY]

44. Or take a chemistry class to understand that electricity (albeit minor) can be a catalyst

to a violent chemical reaction.

[YOY]

45. Because they have a basic understanding of Chemistry

Or just because one is for peace does that mean that once cannot understand such things as physics, chemistry, and simple engineering? Because they can be used for "bad things."


Explosives can have a positive use: Demolitions on derelict buildings, blowing up precarious snow build up on mountaintops to create "controlled avalanches", fireworks on the 4th of July...

[Solon]

52. Blowing up objects except for humans and animals has nothing to do with peace...

You should see my "experiments" on Fourth of July, trying to make homemade fireworks is fun, and I've used electronic detonators powered by less than 9 volts at the time, Radio Shack was my friend then. Oh, and I still have all my fingers, though I've singed them plenty of times.

[hobbit709]

17. Some of us don't tell everything we know or how we learned it.

[Xenotime]

24. Your siggy says, "I won't shut up now."

You outta add "...except when it comes to bombs."

[hobbit709]

34. AH! But that was when I was expected to blindly follow orders.

I still don't react well to that

[ProfessorGAC]

19. I Was Trained By the A.C.E.

Back in the late 70's as part of a civilian consultant program. Background check and everything.
GAC

[BoneDaddy]

25. "bomb experts" or we know stupid statements

when we see them. The OP is a very very stupid statement.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. We're da bomb, baby.

Hey, somebody had to say it.

[Kingshakabobo]

49. Never you mind......

[regnaD kciN]

21. If I recall, the bomb that blew up PanAm 103 over Lockerbie...

...was set off by the batteries in a Toshiba "boom box"...probably two to four C or D cells, with a combined total voltage of 3 to 6 volts.

[BoneDaddy]

23. Shows how little you know

how a bomb is triggered can require the slightest of currents.

[LanternWaste]

27. I'm no bomb expert either.

I'm no bomb expert either. So I wouldn't know what a bomb looks like and would have to take it on faith from the experts. I don't know what a bomb is powered by-- or is triggered by-- or even what the detonation would look like (other than what I've seen in bad spy movies...)

[EnviroBat]

28. Correct, you are no bomb expert.

[Pavulon]

29. As you have seen from the posts

the battery is not the issue. The resemblance to this is. There is no airport in the world where wearing this will not provoke an armed response. The police were quire restrained in not shooting her in the head on sight. If she is not mentally ill she has no excuse for endangering people.

[Bitwit1234]

31. What damage can play dough do....should we take it away from out kids.

I know bombers put putty in their bombs, but could play dough do this.

[EnviroBat]

35. You could jam the Play-D'oh up someones nose, tape the mouth shut and viola!

Death by Play-D'oh.

[Pavulon]

38. Play dough..

toy


semtex


toy


hk usp

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. None.

And neither can baking powder. But if you put some in an envelope and mail it to a congressman you've just committed a crime.

[Tesha]

33. You are wrong. (NT)

[Warren DeMontague]

36. Don't worry. Soon enough part of the peanut gallery will decide this kid is the next Rosa Parks.

Between her, annoying question taser-man, and the cat who ran out of Circuit City instead of showing security his receipt, we've got a veritable Freedom honor roll worthy of the founding fathers, here.

[Pithlet]

41. To be fair, I was against Circuit City. But, I think this girl did a stupid and dangerous thing.

The three cases you mention are not similar.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. I know, but I think no matter where you stood on Circuit City, comparing that dude to

Rosa Parks or MLK was a little excessive.

I just think we maybe need to do a better job of picking our vanguards of freedom, as it were. The guy facing 20 years for growing pot for cancer grannies, maybe.

[Pithlet]

43. True, but the vast majority of people who objected weren't doing that.

And I don't agree with you. I think that any infringement on a person's rights is a big deal worthy of fighting for. It's irrelevant that the CC guy isn't Rosa Parks. Everyone deserves equal protection, and every time a power infringes on that, it's a serious matter. Even if the victim is the biggest asshole ever. I'm not saying that every person has to get worked up into a froth every time it happens. But, I think that any time anyone speaks out against it, they are doing a worthy thing, and telling them to shut up and pick their battles doesn't help anyone. Either a thing is right or it isn't. I don't want to reignite the CC battle again, so I'll shut up about that now. I just wanted to point out that not everyone who objects to a wrong done against a person is reacting in a kneejerk fashion and will always be quick to jump up and defend even when it isn't warranted. I think the police absolutely reacted correctly in the case of the girl at the airport. Her project resembled a bomb enough that it was probably cause to react against her to protect the public.

[Warren DeMontague]

53. No, they weren't. And on some of it, I can see their point.

But I don't think, as many people in those threads did, that a store checking people's receipts as they leave is somehow an infringement on rights or a violation of the 4th amendment.

I do think that genuine infringements on people's rights are a big deal, but I also think that blowing them out of proportion doesn't do anyone any good. Throwing someone in prison for smoking pot in the privacy of their own home? Yeah, that's an infringement on someone's rights, I should think. Asking a cigarette smoker to step outside of a bar, restaurant, gas station or hospital ICU before lighting up? No, contrary to some of the hyperbole I've seen on some of the smoking ban threads, that is not the start of the slippery slope to Auschwitz.

I don't want to re-open the CC issue, either, but my point was only that SOME people WERE comparing him to Rosa Parks. The fact that I bring that up as a ridiculous comparison doesn't mean that I agree with everything in the way his situation was handled. And some people have been acting like the obnoxious guy screaming polemics at John Kerry was Ghandi and Spartacus all rolled into one. Pointing out the absurdity of that doesn't mean I think "bro" should have been tasered. Etc.

[Retired AF Dem]

39. You have that right

you arent an expert.

[MrCoffee]

46. the 38 posts prior to yours made that abundantly clear, so why pile on?

[Ganja Ninja]

47. A blasting cap with a long enough wire on it could be set off by

by the micro voltage generated by someone using a hand held radio.

[youthere]

48. The 9V is more than enough power to provide detonation.

[Javaman]

50. No worries.

I've been were you are. gracefully step away from the post. :) smile, nod and wave.

[slackmaster]

51. A 9-volt battery can set off a model rocket igniter, or a fuse

Or a detonator.