Why do some things explode instead of simply burn?
In: Chemistry
To keep it really elementary, the reasons things explode is because the energy stored in them is released rapidly.
You could have a thick piece of hardwood and, say, a bottle cap of black powder that have the same amount of energy stored in them, but when you apply a match to both of them the outcome is very different. The energy stored in the chemical bonds of the matter that makes up the log is going to be released very slowly over a matter of minutes and hours as the wood burns. The energy in the black powder is going to be released almost instantly as the bonds between the matter that make up the black powder break within a fraction of a second.
Think of it like this: it’s the difference between a tire losing air over a few days beacuse of a tiny leak slowly letting the pressure out of the tire, versus the sidewall of the tire failing and *all* the air pressure escaping almost immediately. It’s the same amount of air pressure in both cases but the outcome of one over the other is pretty dramatic.
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