{"id":7437,"date":"2011-09-07T09:47:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T14:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/?p=7437"},"modified":"2011-10-22T10:28:30","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T15:28:30","slug":"gray-matter-how-to-start-a-fire-with-only-compressed-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/gray-matter-how-to-start-a-fire-with-only-compressed-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Gray Matter: How to Start a Fire With Only Compressed Air"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000CEBPG2\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=survspot0e-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B000CEBPG2\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/fire-piston.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Popular Science-Gray Matter-Fire Piston\" width=\"525\" height=\"666\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/fire-piston.jpg 525w, https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/fire-piston-236x300.jpg 236w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve probably seen contestants on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbs.com\/shows\/survivor\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">Survivor<\/a> trying to make fire by rubbing sticks together or concentrating sunlight with their eyeglasses.<!--more--> But among preindustrial fire-starting methods, it\u2019s hard to beat the portable convenience of fire pistons, used in Southeast Asia since prehistoric times.<\/p>\n<p>Almost all gases heat up when compressed. The harder and the faster the compression, the hotter the gas gets, hot enough even to ignite cotton wool or other flammable materials. Diesel engines work the same way: They have no spark plugs; instead the fuel\/air mixture is ignited by compression as the cylinder closes up.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/11173893?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/11173893\" class=\"broken_link\">Gray Matter: The Fire Piston<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/user1955719\" class=\"broken_link\">PopSci.com<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\" class=\"broken_link\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most surprising is that this same principle also explains how many high explosives work. They are called \u201chigh\u201d because their explosive reaction expands through a supersonic pressure wave that travels much faster than ordinary burning, making them far more powerful than low explosives like gunpowder. Each successive bit of material in a high explosive ignites when the pressure wave compresses and heats trapped microscopic bubbles of gas. When manufactured without bubbles, even extremely powerful high explosives can be impossible to detonate. Without gas to compress, there is no way for the detonation wave to heat up neighboring areas.<\/p>\n<p>For example, ANFO (ammonium nitrate\/fuel oil) explosive mixtures, commonly used in mining, don\u2019t always naturally contain enough trapped gas, and require a \u201csensitizer\u201d to render them reliably explosive\u2014often just a slurry containing hollow glass microspheres.<\/p>\n<p>Some high explosives also create heat through the friction of microscopic crystals rubbing against each other, but in many cases the difference between bang and no bang is just hot air.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004B38MKW\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=survspot0e-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B004B38MKW\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/amber-light-fire-piston.jpg\" alt=\"Amberlight Fire PIston\" title=\"amber-light-fire-piston\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/amber-light-fire-piston.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/amber-light-fire-piston-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004B38MKW\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=survspot0e-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B004B38MKW\" class=\"broken_link\">Amber FireLight Fire Piston by Wilderness Solutions $49.95<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B004B38MKW&#038;camp=217145&#038;creative=399373\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>SOURCE:<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.popsci.com\/science\/article\/2010-03\/how-start-fire-just-compressed-air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve probably seen contestants on Survivor trying to make fire by rubbing sticks together or concentrating sunlight with their eyeglasses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[376,403],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-outdoors"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}