It's summer time ... and that means time for BBQs, right?
During my XMP run this weekend, one runner was talking about a contest they had at the Purdue Engineering Department in the mid-1990s. The students were competing to be the quickest to light a BBQ. The winner took 2 seconds to light their BBQ ... using liquid oxygen! Check out the video:
Only scientists would dream up this kind of experiment! :)
Hmmm - Sounds like an experiment that needs to be repeated ...
7 comments:
several years ago I saw one of the Boy Scout fathers light charcoal using white gasoline instead of lighter fluid ... it went fast, as did his eyebrows ... ^z
WOW!!!!.... You light it. I'll watch...from a high hill about 3 miles away. With a really good pair of binoculars.......
DC
I wonder if the park personnel knew what those guys were up to! :-)
To be a curmudgen, they do not appear to have lit the charcoal - just burned everything up. I recall someone doing something similar - I think it involved propane and oxygen, like a very large acetelyene torch to light the charcoal and have it ready for grilling in a couple of seconds.
On a more modest note, I have a picture of my father using a hairdryer to accelerate the lighting process. Sure beats blowing on the coals. Too bad he didn't have some oxygen to add to the mix.
that's wild!!
Mark,
Hmm...I think eyebrows might have been a casualty here too! haha I would hate to be the guy lighting it up!
Ken,
They never said anything about burning the BBQ in the rules, did they? They definitely lit the charcoal! Just everything else went with it as well, haha.
DC,
I think I would be far, far away as well. I would leave this to people like Adam and Jaime on Mythbusters :)
Mary,
I bet the park personnel knew about it, and just conveniently looked the other way! Or watched ... :)
What gets me about this whole thing now that i've watched it again - The guy who has the liquid oxygen is pouring it on from a bucket attached to a WOODEN beam.
Not too smart for a bunch of engineers!
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