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Physics For Future Presidents

Richard A. Muller

1. If you want to destroy a car, you can use a stick of TNT. But an equal weight of chocolate chip cookies, fed (for example) to teenagers with sledgehammers, can accomplish far more destruction. The chocolate chip cookies deliver about 5 food calories of energy per gram (the weight of about 2 chocolate chips), a number you can find in any diet book, whereas TNT delivers only 0.65 food calories per gram - nine times less.

2. TNT is used… because it can release its energy very rapidly. Break one molecule of TNT, and the energy breaks the adjacent catches. TNT then detonates as a chemical chain reaction. In a millionth of a second, the energy of the springs is transformed into energy of motion. The molecules have high velocity, and that means they are hot.

3. A ton of TNT has the energy of a million food calories!