For the Inner Pyromaniacs Inside All of Us

Hello fellow chemistry enthusiasts! In honor of celebrating the creation of my blog, I'm going to start it off with a bang. Literally! By this I mean the combustion of a substance known as thermite. Thermite is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide which burns at a very high heat as shown in this video from the TV series, Mytbusters! Please disregard the first ten seconds of the cartoon introduction, I apologize in advance.

As stated in the video by one of the main scientists, when ignited, thermite burns three times hotter than molten lava. Even prior to this statement, the scientist mentions how he talked to fellow colleagues who also used this amount of thermite, and they use this to make rocket boosters! For me, I find the sheer power and energy given off by this reaction truly fascinating. Mixtures of thermite containing iron oxide usually produce heat around 2887 degrees Celsius (approximately 5229 degrees Fahrenheit) when ignited. Though I know I will not be conducting experiments like this in my Honors Chemistry class, videos such as this harbor an excitement inside of me to study chemical reactions and ultimately learn how matter does react with other forms of matter. Even on the smaller scale of a high school level, experiments such as these still display processes which we would otherwise be completely unaware of in the world around us. It's also interesting to think of how a person can join elements and their properties to make a new substance or mixture possessing both sets of properties like thermite in this case. Due to the heat given off when thermite burns, it is commonly used for welding purposes like joining metal to make railroads. Here's yet another exciting video of thermite burning over ice to start off this blog not with one, but two bangs! 

Another thing I want to point out about this video is how scientists are still unsure as to why thermite does provide this explosion in the presence of ice. This shows that there is still much to learn in the area of chemistry, and the same can be said for science as a whole. As there are multiple explanations as to why this reaction may occur, there are multiple approaches and reasons as well, showing chemistry is a subject in which one has to draw conclusions and make inferences to ultimately form an answer as to why something like this occurs. Good-bye for now!