What can I say, except check it out:
http://www.portalofevil.com/archives/ScienceInsane.html

> Gordon, Dien, and All,

> Going through some old files looking for
> recipes, I came upon this old email. Copy
> below.

> I tried several links, and they STILL are
> O.K. A thunder storm forced me to shut down
> early.

> Be SURE TO CHECK THE PURDUE URL AT THE END
> of all this. Lots of interesting links.

> ENJOY.

> Mary

> P.S.
> I found a recipe for Maple Wine and Honey
> Wine. I haven't tried to make either, but if
> anyone is interested, I could send you the
> recipes.
> Mary

> -------------------

> The URL is authentic,

> but you must wait for the bottom of the page
> to come through
> before you can access either the picture or
> the video...

> | -----------------------------
> | Our subject today is lighting charcoal
> grills. One of
> | our favorite charcoal grill lighters is a
> guy named
> | George Goble, a computer person in the
> Purdue University
> | engineering department.
> |
> | Each year, Goble and a bunch of other
> engineers hold a
> | picnic in West Lafayette, Indiana, at
> which they cook
> | hamburgers on a big grill. Being
> engineers, they began
> | looking for practical ways to speed up the
> | charcoal-lighting process.
> |
> | "We started by blowing the charcoal
> with a hair dryer,"
> | Goble told me in a telephone interview.
> "Then we
> | figured out that it would light faster if
> we used a
> | vacuum cleaner."
> |
> | If you know anything about (1) engineers
> and (2) guys in
> | general, you know what happened: The
> purpose of the
> | charcoal-lighting shifted from cooking
> hamburgers to
> | seeing how fast they could light the
> charcoal.
> |
> | >From the vacuum cleaner, they
> escalated to using a
> | propane torch, then an acetylene torch.
> Then Goble
> | started using compressed pure oxygen,
> which caused the
> | charcoal to burn much faster, because as
> you recall from
> | chemistry class, fire is essentially the
> rapid
> | combination of oxygen with a reducing
> agent (the
> | charcoal). We discovered that a long time
> ago,
> | somewhere in the valley between the Tigris
> and Euphrates
> | rivers (or something along those lines).
> |
> | By this point, Goble was getting pretty
> good times. But
> | in the world of competitive
> charcoal-lighting, "pretty
> | good" does not cut the mustard.
> |
> | Thus, Goble hit upon the idea of using ---
> get ready ---
> | liquid oxygen. This is oxygen. In terms of
> releasing
> | energy, pouring liquid oxygen on charcoal
> is the
> | equivalent of throwing a live squirrel
> into a room
> | containing 50 million Labrador retrievers.
> |
> | On Goble's World Wide Web page (the
> address is
> | http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/ ), you can see
> actual
> | photographs and a video of Goble using a
> bucket attached
> | to a 10-foot-long wooden handle to dump 3
> gallons of
> | liquid oxygen (not sold in stores) onto a
> grill
> | containing 60 pounds of charcoal and a lit
> cigarette for
> | ignition.
> |
> | What follows is the most impressive
> charcoal-lighting I
> | have ever seen, featuring a large fireball
> that
> | according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees
> Fahrenheit.
> | The charcoal was ready for cooking in ---
> this has to be
> | a world record --- 3 seconds.
> |
> | There's also a photo of what happened when
> Goble used
> | the same technique on a flimsy $2.88
> discount-store
> | grill. All that's left is a circle of
> charcoal with a
> | few shreds of metal in it.
> "Basically, the grill
> | vaporized," said Goble. "We were
> thinking of returning
> | it to the store for a refund."
> |
> | Looking at Goble's video and photos, I
> became, as an
> | American, all choked up with gratitude at
> the fact that
> | I do not live anywhere near the engineers'
> picnic site.
> | But also, I was proud of my country for
> producing guys
> | who can be ready to barbecue in less time
> than it take
> | for guys in less-advanced nations, such as
> France, to
> | spit.
> |
> | Will the 3-second barrier ever be broken?
> Will
> | engineers come up with a new, more
> powerful
> | charcoal-lighting technology? It's
> something or all of
> | us to ponder this summer as we sit
> outside, chewing our
> | hamburgers, every now and then glancing in
> the direction
> | of West Lafayette, Indiana, looking for a
> mushroom
> | cloud.
> |
> | Do _not_ miss the web site at
> |
> | http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/




Insane science here