Talk:Explosives/Draft

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Fixed typo

Changed firing pink to firing pin.Mary Ash 02:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

-) You must admit that sounds like something that Combat Barbie would use. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

ROFL the vision of combat Barbie...where's G.I. Joe when you need him :-)Mary Ash 02:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Clarification

It would help to have some of the acronyms spelled out such as PBXN7. What's that?? Thanks!Mary Ash 02:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, that's a designation, not an acronym. My guess is that it derives from PBX (explosive), with various additives. [1] describes it simply as an explosive composition from China Lake.

Just as an example, PBX-9404 is not an acronym, but a designation for a mixture of 94% HMX (explosive), 3% NC, 3% Tris(2-chloroethyl)phosphate (CEF); I don't know what NC is. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

As a guess, PBX-9404 could be the 4th Plastic Bonded Explosive formula of 1994, or of project 94, or something else. Most of the PBX designations I know start with 94, but you'll find equivalent functionality in things like LX-17. I'd only guess that comes from eXplosive developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Part of my review that you asked for

Howard, when I started my review, the first thing that caught my eye were the three images. One of them had a very dark background that made the text hard to read ... so I revised the background to white, and I also cleaned up the somewhat blurry text in that image. The I added credit line to all three images. Hope those changes are okay by you.

I will try to review the content tomorrow ... but keep in mind that I know very little about this subject. Milton Beychok 02:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The hyperlink in Reference 4, New Energetic Materials, just takes me to an page asking for email address and name and profession. I recommend that you change that to New Energetic Materials which takes the reader directly to page 8 of the referenced book. If you wish, I could make that change for you ... but it might disqualify me to nominate the article for approval. Up until now, all I have done is correct a number of typos, plus cleaning up one image. Milton Beychok 18:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Same problem with Reference 10, and here I suggest changing the current link to New Energetic Materials which takes the reader directly to page 16 of the referenced book. Milton Beychok 19:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the "Fluid dynamics" section ia denoted as a block quote ... but when I read the reference 6, I found only the first sentence of your block quote and not the rest of it, at least not as a contiguous quote. I would suggest you remove the block quote tags and simply end that paragraph with a period (rather than the current comma) and the reference 6. No change in content, just don't denote it as a block quote. Milton Beychok 19:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that you implement the above three suggestions, I would be ready to nominate the article for Approval or to support someone else's nomination. Milton Beychok 19:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(undent) 4 and 10 are done, and I'll fix 6. Is there a third Engineering editor? No one is active in Military, or, as far as I know, Chemistry besides yourself. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

No, none other active at this time. You might try contacting David Volk (Chemistry editor) who still drops in every once in a while. Milton Beychok 20:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm puzzled, though, at your question about Reference 6, which I just downloaded again.

The science of high explosives is basically a coupling of chemistry and fluid mechanics. While each of these fields is in itself quite well developed and sophisticated, high explosives science is surprisingly primitive. The fluid-mechanical phenomenon of detonation is reasonably well understood, but the detailed chemical reactions and thermomechanics that cause a detonation are still largely a mystery,

is the lede of the article. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Upon re-reading that pdf, I stand corrected except for one minor thing. That quote does indeed end with a comma, but it is in fact the end of a sentence and should be a period. It's a typo in the pdf, but I think we should end the quote in this article in a period. Milton Beychok 00:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Howard C. Berkowitz 06:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Nominated for Approval

I just nominated this article for Approval. Since my revisions were all minor copy edits (Wiki links, typos, mis-spellings, adding credit lines to images and cleaning up one image), I believe that I still qualify for a one-editor Approval. Of course, that does not exclude other Engineering, Chemistry or Military editors from joining me in the Approval. Milton Beychok 06:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, I lower-case approve of an article that I mostly wrote, but I remain mystified if I am allowed to Approve if a different author first nominated it, but there isn't necessarily a third Editor. Howard C. Berkowitz 07:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not ask Matt and/or Chris about that? I don't know the answer. Milton Beychok 07:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice article. During a quick glance starting from the bottom, I saw a number of sentences that need rewriting, and I can write up a list of suggested changes for you tomorrow, but not today. David E. Volk 12:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

In the thermobaric section it reads The fluid dynamics of these explosions was much less understood... - should that be the fluid DYNAMIC...was much less understood (ie singular dynamic) or the fluid dynamics...WERE much less understood (pluralising)? I don't know which of the three is correct, just that it sounds funny when I read the current text. David Finn 13:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Just had a look at the images and think Image:Thermobaric vs HE.png does not meet image quality criteria. Details on its talk page. --Daniel Mietchen 13:53, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Good to see you, David (Volk). I've been forgetting to ask you again for a name (or link) to the molecular drawing freeware you use. If you like, this article could become a three-editor nomination, with you from Chemistry and me from Military/Engineering. I look forward to your suggestions.

David Finn -- let me think of this. You refer to quoted material; I would have written it as "the fluid dynamics are", but that would have changed the quote

Daniel -- I'm open for suggestions on how best to improve that graphic. Originally, it was a capture from a PDF. Milt found a better way to capture, and to deal with the contrast. Unfortunately, I don't know a good way to clean up a curved line such as that in the graph, if I'm not generating the line and doing mathematical curve-fitting. While I'd have to reload the driver, I do have a graphics tablet that I think works, so I could hand-trace it, but I don't know of any graphics software I have to refine the curve--yes, there were some old Mac things that did, but that was twenty years ago -- how quickly we lose technology! Could you suggest an application? Howard C. Berkowitz 16:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I was able to clean up the resolution of what is now the black lines and black text in the image. However, trying to re-do the curved lines is beyond my capability. If someone could re-do those curved lines in black as well as the remaining non-black text, then the image would be much better. Milton Beychok 16:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)