Ragib Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 Ok fine..this isnt my area of science anyway lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Albers Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 Ragib, I only poked a little fun at toaster wires but you showed you understood they vaporized. I should not dismiss the role of resistive heating because that is what happens first and continues as long as the current path is there. I appreciate your discussion, and though I spent two years as a college research assistant on an accelerator team at the Brookhaven 3GEV beam, I don't know much theory here. I observe we have a factor of 5 or so higher temperature than mentioned for carbon 'burning'. Water is one thousand kg/m3; steel is maybe 5-6 times as dense, and however much the volume is pinched, perhaps a factor of a thousand, multiplies in. If it is true that what matters is the product of temperature and density (given adequate energy), it seems to me on an order-of-magnitude quick approx, we are only an order of magnitude shy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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