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Opus the Poet wrote:And there is nothing growing in Canyon de Chelly that will burn.
As long as Pickle doesn't start playing around with ClF3. If she does, all bets are off... that stuff will burn rock, sand, concrete, asbestos, and test engineers. Don't stand down-wind.
Ah, yes, good old chlorine trifluoride. For those unfamiliar, yes, it really does burn all those things -- see "Sand Won't Save You This Time" for hilariously-written details.
It goes with FOOF on a list of chemicals I want absolutely nothing to do with.
Of course, there are quite a lot of fluorine compounds that any sane person would put on such a list. But some are worse than others. When your ice cube catches fire and the smoke dissolves things... it's time to be somewhere else.
I've learned that John Clark's book Ignition! is now back in print, after being unavailable for decades. It's a history of the development of liquid ticket fuels and oxidizers, and is just full of wonderful stories about these nasty, hazardous, toxic, explosive, stinky, and otherwise socially-unacceptable chemicals. ClF3, FOOF, milder materials like red fuming nitric acid and nitrogen tetroxide and aniline, mercaptans by the tank-car-load... there's not a one of them you'd want to invite home to introduce to your parents or to meet your significant other.
I haven't decided whether to spring for the expensive hardcover, or content myself with the trade paperback... but I do think my bookshelf needs a copy.
-- see "Sand Won't Save You This Time" for hilariously-written details.
