Nukes in 1626? Beijing explosion created mushroom cloud, stripped everyone naked

Originally posted by diqiushiwojia
What if it was a 17-century version of neutron bomb? (That would make more holes in the theory than it plugs, though it's worth thinking over.)

That's a lot harder. Now, you're not only having to enrich uranium, which they couldn't do, and they'd have to have some sweeping improvements in chemistry to get some high brisance explosives they could use for compression (and you say their gunpowder is too crappy to explain the bang...), plus a miracle in machining, mathematics, physics and the like even to make a simple fission weapon. NOW you're adding in the manufacture of Li6D and plutonium, plus the advanced polymers and metallurgy to make a thermonuclear device.

You're about 15 levels back on the 'tools to make the tools' chain of physics and material science.

reply to post by superman2012


Verneshot must have been the 'hidden volcano' thing. Thanks for bringing it up! I only wish there were more info on this theory.

reply to post by pheonix358


Thanks, that was a nice theory. I do think there are loopholes though (as in any other theory presented). Firstly, if the gunpowder was dampened, they wouldn't burn at all. Secondly, how about the fireball? Would the explosion be big enough to strip everyone naked?

As for shrapnel, that explains the fatality, but doesn't seem to explain the extent of the area damaged.

reply to post by sirhumperdink


That sounds a really interesting. Could you elaborate on that?

reply to post by NeoVain


I suppose that's possible. However, they couldn't have stockpiled so much because the factory had a very small underground storage. Also, with the Jurchen, the Mongolians, the Japanese, the Dutch and the Portuguese to fight, the gunpowder was used up very quickly. (700 tonnes is more like the max amount - it assumes they didn't go on holidays, slack off, stay from work, etc.)

I'm sitting in Beijing right now, eating a fine chicken sandwich, and reading your fine post.

A really thought-provoking theory, peppered with many interesting historical points. I've often mused, mostly to myself, that China must be full of old, unexplained mysteries. Thanks for introducing me to a mystery I had previously never heard of...

You've created a good many China Threads - keep up the good work and consider yourself the Chinese Art Bell.

"Conclusion

The Wang Gong Factory explosion was a mysterious explosion which took away the lives of many. Although many 'sensible' theories have been proposed, each one has serious loopholes..."

You talk about loopholes and then suggest that China had a nuclear bomb in the 1600's.

You talk about the explosion "maybe being Uranium" that blew up, even though Uranium itself is not explosive.


It's a load of psuedo science mixed up with gobbledy-gook.

I can see your thinking - uranium is used in nuclear bombs, so maybe they'd stored some uranium near the gunpowder and it made a bigger explosion.

Just not possible I'm afraid.

A little bit of thought and checking some basic facts would have avoided this ludicrous thread.

ATS really is getting more and more bonkers.

reply to post by Power_Semi


Totally agree. And then any posts pointing this out are ignored!

It is an interesting thread (something i didn't know about) that is full of holes in the theory. Well, i say holes. Really they are more continent sized!

reply to post by diqiushiwojia


Jóusàhn,

Just for the record, I in no way meant to refer to 'Atlantis' or anything of the sort when I referred to alchemy.

Saltpeter has many qualities that Chinese found useful. One of great importance was its ability to dissolve and transform ores and minerals. The Illustrated Manual on the Subduing of Mercury, published around 1150, makes reference to this highly valuable property of saltpeter.

www.monkeytree.org...

The Gunpowder Epic

I meant ancient chemistry, I suppose; just for the record.

Please excuse my poster's paranoia, I just don't want to be thrown on the 'Atlantis' heap.

Ciao.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


Meteor strikes right into powder factory? Maybe their enemies could have directed meteors to fall where they want?

From what I understand this is why they call it critical mass, when the make a uranium Bomb old school, you have enough Uranium to make critical mass.
But you leave out a small section so it is not a critical mass, you load this piece into a cannon and very it at high speed at he large portion of Uranium, at which time it reaches critical mass gets all excited and blows up.

So if these fools did think it was gold, would be heavy and they got enough of it together in theroy it could blow up.

This is why in the reaction chamber it is slopped, for fear if it dropped it could cause a explosion, if it just melted and flowed down to the bottom then we would only have a China syndrome.

Japan could probably blow at any time, it's got nice glow down there, but that would be what America syndrome.

The US did make a mushroom cloud here while back using conventional explosives.

This wouldn't be surprising if the Chinese did invent or in the case of the accident, were in the processing of inventing some semi-nuke-gunpowder mix that ended up being to unstable. From the story of Yuan it looks like they had a smaller version of it and maybe they tried to beef it up after seeing the potential of what it could do in battle.

The Chinese/Koreans were light years ahead of their times. China and Korea were strong allies as well as constantly at war back in those days with both sides developing futuristic weapons. Though China got the credit for most of them, mainly cause of the size of China and they were more open to trade with foreign nations. Korea was known as the "Hermit" country, more isolated then Japan, as odd as that might sound. Any who, China did develop chrome almost 2000 years before it was redeveloped in the U.S. so it would not be at all surprising if they were on the verge of making some kind of semi-nuke that used gunpowder and uranium.

Awesome post and it is an interesting story that makes the wheels in the brain turn.

I think it good have been a dust explosion as mentioned by others, except the dust could have been nitrate dust or a combination of the components of gunpowder. It was mentioned that 17th century gunpowder was not as powerful as later blends of sulfur, charcoal and nitrates. Is this because of formulation? Maybe the dust combined into a more powerful mixture by chance.

Or perhaps, by chance, organic reactions resulted in a mixture that produced a form of Nitro, not entirely impossible.

Originally posted by OOOOOO
From what I understand this is why they call it critical mass, when the make a uranium Bomb old school, you have enough Uranium to make critical mass.

Critical mass is a variable that depends on the mean free path of neutrons in your reaction mass. In this case, you've got unenriched uranium. If you've got very very pure unenriched uranium oxide, and very very pure graphite, and by that I mean the sort of purity it took 20th century material science to achieve, then with only 50 tons or so of uranium, if you arrange it just right, you can just reach critical mass for a moderated unshielded sphere. That isn't an explosion. It just reaches breakeven and gets warm.

But you leave out a small section so it is not a critical mass, you load this piece into a cannon and very it at high speed at he large portion of Uranium, at which time it reaches critical mass gets all excited and blows up.

With natural uranium, not so much.

So if these fools did think it was gold, would be heavy and they got enough of it together in theroy it could blow up.

Nope.

This is why in the reaction chamber it is slopped, for fear if it dropped it could cause a explosion, if it just melted and flowed down to the bottom then we would only have a China syndrome.

Not at all sure what you're talking about here.

Originally posted by Lostmymarbles
This wouldn't be surprising if the Chinese did invent or in the case of the accident, were in the processing of inventing some semi-nuke-gunpowder mix that ended up being to unstable.

Yeah, it would be surprising, since that wouldn't 'become unstable'. At all.

The Chinese/Koreans were light years ahead of their times.

Let's see some evidence of large scale electrical generation, understanding of maraging steel, development of electricity, the electric motor, etc. At the far end of that, you get the ability to enrich uranium and make plutonium. But they weren't anywhere near it. Didn't happen.

Airburst meteor as per Chelyabinsk............ gunpowder factory was collateral, and then additional, damage

S+F for the interesting thread.

You might want to fix this part of your post, however:

Originally posted by diqiushiwojia
Ming gunpowder wasn't very powerful (though it was powerful at the time). The energy released could not exceed 3000m/s and produces lots of black smoke (not a mushroom cloud).

m/s is a measure of velocity, not energy.

Originally posted by generik
just because there is a "mushroom cloud", does not mean a nuclear explosion.

it just means a really big explosion.

the tsar bomb for example

Is there something else with this name? Am I missing the joke? This is a nuclear explosion...thanks in advance.

Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба; "Tsar Bomb") is the nickname for the AN602 hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Its October 30, 1961, test remains the most powerful artificial explosion in human history.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by diqiushiwojia


My husband who has a degree in metalurgy and heat transfer says that heating uranium ore cannot produce an explosion. Simply heating it does NOT release its potential explosive energy, no matter how hot you get it.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by Lostmymarbles
This wouldn't be surprising if the Chinese did invent or in the case of the accident, were in the processing of inventing some semi-nuke-gunpowder mix that ended up being to unstable.

Yeah, it would be surprising, since that wouldn't 'become unstable'. At all.

The Chinese/Koreans were light years ahead of their times.

Let's see some evidence of large scale electrical generation, understanding of maraging steel, development of electricity, the electric motor, etc. At the far end of that, you get the ability to enrich uranium and make plutonium. But they weren't anywhere near it. Didn't happen.

I was referring to grenades, gunpowder propelled arrows, gunpowder propelled ballistics (the big wooden arrows), Chinese fire arrows, gunpowder propelled grenades, which all can be considered rockets, some of the first gunpowder guns, and there are more to list if you would like me to. All of which were invented a used 100s of years before they were used in the Western World.

The Chinese perfected the mass production of chrome arrows like that of an assembly line, which was done almost 2000 years (give or take a 100) before chrome was rediscovered in 1797, used in the 1840s and perfected in the early 1900s.

Originally posted by Lostmymarbles

I was referring to grenades, gunpowder propelled arrows, gunpowder propelled ballistics (the big wooden arrows), Chinese fire arrows, gunpowder propelled grenades, which all can be considered rockets

Sorry, I guess where you stated "some sort of semi-nuke that used uranium and gunpowder" sort of led me to believe you were referring to some sort of semi-nuke that used uranium and gunpowder, and not just grenades and fire arrows.

But no, the 16th and 17th century Chinese did not enrich uranium nor did they produce plutonium, and burning uranium with gunpowder does not a nuclear explosion make. Although you could make a dandy chemical toxin that way - pretty much any heavy element, when burned to its oxide, will cause chemotoxicity. Not radiation poisoning or a 'semi nuke' explosion. But they are poisonous in a classical sense, or can be.

Wouldn't peel off your clothing, though.

so there is no possibility it was a meteor like the one that happened in tunguska siberia? perhaps the rumble before the explosion was the shock wave from the speed of the meteor? i dont think we have had witnesses to a meteor impact of that magnitude so how would we know how loud it would be or if it would make the earth shake prior to impact.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by Lostmymarbles

I was referring to grenades, gunpowder propelled arrows, gunpowder propelled ballistics (the big wooden arrows), Chinese fire arrows, gunpowder propelled grenades, which all can be considered rockets

Sorry, I guess where you stated "some sort of semi-nuke that used uranium and gunpowder" sort of led me to believe you were referring to some sort of semi-nuke that used uranium and gunpowder, and not just grenades and fire arrows.

But no, the 16th and 17th century Chinese did not enrich uranium ]

Bedlam.......So adamant

It is NOT the OP's place to unravel the secrets of what 20-30 men under the direction of a Brilliant man could or could not accomplish over a decade or two. Science is after all as much a stumbled upon thing as it is a result of scientific method

There are many "sciences: lost to us, for thousands of forms of mathematics we base our entire society upon one... Euclidean Geometry The man who built Coral Castle in Florida shows us something.... there is a system of balance points, triangulation and leverage that allows one to move giant stones that modern science can't quite put it's finger around.

What could a man with his life devoted to Uranium a background in Chinese Alchemy/Chemistry and a building full of laborers accomplish? I don't know... I know you I or the OP couldn't recreate a couple of decades of the life of whomever was in charge/ allowed to play in that building.

I can suppose many things that DO make sense

1: Whomever was in that building... if they had an interest in making things go boom, they had an interest in alchemy/chemistry and this was a lifetime pursuit

2: This person would have studied texts... at the time the older the better was the rule of the day particularly to one of an interest in alchemy and this is a region of the world where in genuinely ancient times in India atomic explosions MAY have occurred in deep antiquity and legends of more advanced previous civilizations are ripe

3: There was a large workforce at someones disposal

4: A person "lost" in the study of uranium very well may have found over a long time a way to make something along the lines of yellow cake your dealing with a very patient people the builders of the great wall of china, the process of methods of "separation" would have been engaged in, gunpowder surely made someone very wealthy... the acquirement of vast amounts of Uranium for a $$ price is a near certainty the VOLUME in that basement may have been excessive and very well refined over time

5: Gunpowder would NOT be the only concoction in that building the stories DO point to more extreme explosives being used in war.

7: Gunpowder would not by itself be the only mixture... God only knows over a few decades what was mixed with the uranium or what methods of extraction, enhancement or stimulation of various materials were left around in barrels in the basement of that building.... Take the presence of Electricity or magnetism? Is it so hard to imagine a thousand "failed experiments" GOLD a great conductor would have been used by any alchemists, acids to dissolve the rock the Uranium was trapped in, metals, solvents...... These things could not be stored in wood, glass... metal, ceramics would be used.... The "accidental battery" is a likely item to be found in that room... it is easy to picture vats in the ground filled with liquids and metals and uranium.... How well do we understand ....."Magnets" as a young alchemist playing with "materials that give off mysterious energy" it is safe to assume the process of experimentation would have included.... Acids, Gold, Magnets, Something close to if not genuine Yellow Cake and who knows what else

8: So here is your scenario. A basement filled with vats of liquid in containers with various amounts of Uranium, various chemical compounds, magnetic materials and an amount of uranium Highly separated in amounts that over time could have been "hot" and exposed to electrical and magnetic charge and every drop of it whatever it amounted to "outgassing in a basement" (and we can be sure these "valued materials" were kept in safest storage out of sight)

It is easy to speculate an obsessed scientist might not pay attention to the $$$ making industry upstairs... in other words Above you have a Poop load of old dynamite Sweating Nitroglycerin all over the place as well as a variety of the best explosives they had managed to develop

So you have a dome a literal 360 degree dome of BOOM over a pit of Hot Uranium in a room full of "accidental batteries" filled with who knows what gasses trapped in an enclosed space.

accidental fission via unknown process... slim

Either way You might not want to light a cigarette around there

and lord only knows what a lightning strike would cause

Fission I dunno... But alqueda could not do any better if you wanted to kill a city