Energetic Materials
3/24/202622 min
Behind every safeguard of national security lies a world few ever see. Inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientists and engineers are redefining how explosions are developed, modeled, and tested to ensure the United States maintains a safe, secure, and reliable deterrent. From molecule-level physics to exascale computing systems, the Energetic Materials Center is the hub of subject matter expertise in explosive science at LLNL. EMC is partnering in global scientific collaborations aimed at reducing risk, advancing security, and shaping the future of deterrence in a rapidly changing world.
Guests featured (in order of appearance):
Lara Leininger...
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[fire crackling] Ancient China, winter. The sun begins to set, slipping behind the ridge. The wind cuts cold. Wood is scarce.
Alex Gasche· Guest0:14
To survive the night- To survive the night, villagers turn to what's available, an invasive, fast-growing plant, bamboo.
Speaker 00:24
The goal is simple: warmth, survival. But from the fire, they hear something.
Alex Gasche· Guest0:33
[bamboo exploding] Ah. Oh.
Speaker 00:35
A loud blast. The huddled circle around the fire jolts backward. As the hollow bamboo stalk ruptures, trapped air is superheated and expands, releasing its energy all at once. Fear turns to curiosity. What just happened?
Alex Gasche· Guest0:52
It's a very, very broad subject. It's also a very old subject. In Asia, they were using energetic materials over a thousand years ago.
Speaker 00:59
Long before equations, long before laboratories, people were asking the first version of the same question scientists ask today: How does something explode?
Alex Gasche· Guest1:11
We've learned, through trial and error, a lot about energetic materials since then.
Speaker 01:17
From bamboo stalks and winter fires to gunpowder packed into cannons, from the sharp crack of a match head to the split-second inflation of a car airbag, from mining blasts that carve tunnels