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Practical Chemistry
2006-08-11 07:47 pmFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ravan comes a link to this little article by someone called electronpusher pointing out that triacetone triperoxide is actually quite difficult to make, and would probably not be very effective on an airplane. (I will note in passing that I was also badly mistaken about how easy concentrated H2O2 is to handle.)
The obvious conclusion, however, is not that the whole plot was a hoax, but that the triacetone triperoxide was either due to an overeager reporter looking up "peroxide" without reading the rest of the article, or possibly a deliberate smokescreen put up by the authorities to hide the real explosive. On the whole I lean toward the first explanation: we already know from other details that the explosive was a binary mixture one component of which was a powder. (Triacetone triperoxide has three components, all liquids: acetone, H2O2, and sulfuric acid.)
Another highly amusing take on the matter can be found in The Register under the title Yanks not impressed with UK terror emergency. Here they conclude that "either that US officials are quite underwhelmed by the UK's evidence of a feasible terrorist plot, or that the US government's casual indifference toward catastrophic loss of life and property, as exhibited when New Orleans was destroyed, is the new American attitude." They conclude:
ravan comes a link to this little article by someone called electronpusher pointing out that triacetone triperoxide is actually quite difficult to make, and would probably not be very effective on an airplane. (I will note in passing that I was also badly mistaken about how easy concentrated H2O2 is to handle.)The obvious conclusion, however, is not that the whole plot was a hoax, but that the triacetone triperoxide was either due to an overeager reporter looking up "peroxide" without reading the rest of the article, or possibly a deliberate smokescreen put up by the authorities to hide the real explosive. On the whole I lean toward the first explanation: we already know from other details that the explosive was a binary mixture one component of which was a powder. (Triacetone triperoxide has three components, all liquids: acetone, H2O2, and sulfuric acid.)
Another highly amusing take on the matter can be found in The Register under the title Yanks not impressed with UK terror emergency. Here they conclude that "either that US officials are quite underwhelmed by the UK's evidence of a feasible terrorist plot, or that the US government's casual indifference toward catastrophic loss of life and property, as exhibited when New Orleans was destroyed, is the new American attitude." They conclude:
Whether we're seeing the true Bushie callousness laid bare, or a healthy American skepticism toward HMG's repeated exhibition of a phony terrorist menace as a pretext to introduce the Kafka-esque legislation favored by Tony Blair and John Reid, will be answered by and by. There will be successful prosecutions, or there will be official excuses verging on an apology, but not quite amounting to one.
