You learn something new every day

[simont]

It occurred to me yesterday that the lembas eaten by Tolkien's Elves must have an extremely high energy density and thus I'd expect it to be explosive, or at the very least dangerously flammable to be hurling around near your campfire.

So it just occurred to me to try to actually estimate the energy density of such a fictitious food and compare it with that of some known explosives – and I discovered after some googling that in fact TNT has an energy density about one quarter that of normal carbohydrate-rich food. Fascinating. So high energy density is not merely insufficient to make something explosive, but in fact it isn't even necessary. I'm surprised; my intuition said otherwise.

In other news, lots of people have commentated on the recent papal election and have said many insightful, witty and/or heartfelt things about it; but I'm faintly disappointed that I've seen not one person entitle their post ‘Episode IV: A New Pope’. There. I have nothing else particularly intelligent to say on the subject, but I didn't want that one to slip by completely unsaid.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

Episode IV: A New Pope

"Episode" is much better than "Benedict", but were there really three other Popes who took that name?

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Of course, carbohydrates *are* explosive if you finely divide them and mix with air. Hence the general lack of metal parts anywhere near millstones.

Lembas

[enslore.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have to obey the laws of physics, it's elfy magical!

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Explosions don't really have much to do with fire, but more to do with creating lots of gas from solids very quickly. Of course, fire is usually involved as a good way of doing this! The pressure that they create in a small volume makes them extremely hot, too, so there's usually fire at least indirectly.

Some things are very dense with energy and can be made to violently and quickly transform into another thing without that change of state, but they don't really explode.

Mundane uses for explosion technology where fire isn't involved (hopefully!) is in car airbags. They use sodium azide which decomposes on heating (even slightly, that's why you keep it in the fridge) to release masses of nitrogen to inflate the airbag.

[velvetfox.livejournal.com]

There was this:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/princej3/12668.html
earlier

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased to notice that you did learn something -- when I read the first paragraph I thought you were going to deduce something, and prepared to be nitpicky :)

What Benedict XVI (or indeed Professor Tolkien) would have to say about Lembas...

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Whereas the SUBSTANCE of Lembas indeed has a high energy density, its ACCIDENTS remain those of ordinary unleavened bread. It's all in Aquinas (http://www.seton-parish.org/parish/Eucharist.htm#3.), all in Aquinas: bless me, what do they teach them at those schools!

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

There's the other Episode IV joke, too, so let's try hybidising them:

Episode IV: A GNU Pope.

Scary...

[keithlard.livejournal.com]

It seems the Orcs had access to explosives, though, which they used to breach the wall at Helm's Deep. Perhaps they could have gone on to develop lembas-powered artillery, for example.

Of course, all matter contains a lot of nuclear energy; I don't think Saruman got as far as building a particle accelerator, though.