Happy Halloween! Enjoy Levitating Pumpkins and Exploding Thermite Pumpkins

By: | October 31st, 2015

The Royal Institution

The Royal Institution posted a neat video on Halloween last year showing off levitating pumpkins with help from a superconductor and a magnetic track.

This year, they are back with another awesome Halloween video featuring exploding thermite pumpkins.

It’s a pretty explosive video if you ask me!

YouTube Explanation:

It wouldn’t be Halloween without some exploding pumpkins. In the top jack-o’-lantern, iron oxide and aluminium powder react to spectacular effect. Once set off by a strip of magnesium, which provides enough heat to get the reaction started, the temperature inside the top pumpkin rises to around 2000 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the iron melts and is spewed out in a rain of fire, and flows out as a river of molten metal into the poor head below. This is more than enough to set off the gun cotton in the second pumpkin, which bursts into a healthy fireball.

Marshall Smith

Technology, engineering, and design enthusiast.

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