No. I’d guess a lot of people who don’t work with it think diesel blows up, even.
What the basic kinds of petroleum are, and which vehicles they go in, is one of those things any reasonably educated person should know, but the majority of the population actually won’t.
I don’t think they do. I’m a person that likes aviation and I never think about jet fuel.
I over think somethings and that gives me anxiety. Been working on that my whole life.
Probably not because it’s extremely useless for 99% of people lol
Does the average person know that a stalagmite is mostly calcium carbonate?
Just like how their government works, or what climate change is.
Like, people aren’t actually dumb, but 1% of their attention on anything that they aren’t paid to do can sure give that appearance.
I knew both! AuDHD for the win.
Umm…what were we talking about again?
Maps, I think? Or ships. Possibly trains…
I swear it was neutron stars.
What if life were to evolve on a neutron star?
Read Flux by Peter F Hamilton if you want to find out.
I was thinking of Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward. I’ll add Flux to my reading list. I enjoyed the one, so I’ll probably enjoy the other.
Thanks for the suggestion
Gamma-based life. Worlds full of hulk strength insectoids.
Well no, why would they remember that? They’ve got to remember the chemical formula for one or two quartzes

I need that brain space for the Windows XP activation code
Of course
does that mean you could use a chunk of a stalagmite as a tums in a pinch? (I think that’s what tums is maybe its a different calcium)
Or that tooth plaque is calcium phosphate?
I think you mean tooth enamel, not plaque
Say it ain’t so!
Maybe people do know that?
Drinking / tap water here comes from a limestone aquifer. Tap ware and shower screens and toilets develop a calcium carbonate build up that needs to be chemically removed.
I think anyone who’s been in a cave and heard how stalagmites form would remember that it’s calcium carbonate.
I learned about it in school and have seen them in a caves but still had to look it up for the bit.
How about this…does the average person know that the transport latency of Dante audio is around 150 microseconds?
Maybe but I don’t.
That’s ok, I don’t expect anyone outside of my industry to know that
Sometimes it’s salt petre.
I don’t know how easily it blows up, I’m too cool to turn around and watch the explosion
I knew, but only because I read a lot of cold war stories, and for war becomes hot stories. Running a jet on cooking kerosene was a plot point in one
I have since read about just engines and jet fuel
I don’t work in that industry at all. I’m an IT systems analyst
No. Most people think you can throw a lit cigarette or lighter on it and it will go up instantly too because of movies. I think Die Hard 2 was the worst lol, he like threw a zippo in the puddle of her fuel and then it followed the plane in mid air to blow it up.
I don’t think people know how octane level works either. I think they assume higher octane is easier to combust when it’s the exact opposite.
Of all the media out there, action movies might be the worst for rotting brains. People can actually seperate porn or cartoons from reality.
And octane doesn’t grant magical horsepowers to your engine if you pour a can of octane boost in the tank.
Especially the octane talk I had many times…
The entire point of jet fuel is that it DOESN’T “blow up easily”, though.
unlike gasoline, It actually takes quite a bit of effort to ignite avgas in it’s liquid form because it’s designed to be aerosolized before being ignited.

Avgas and jet fuel aren’t the same thing. Avgas is leaded gasoline used in airplane engines. Jet fuel is specially formulated for use in turbines.
And… Is this post about 9/11?
Not at all.
Um…
Think things through.
Get a life
Um, another one? I am pretty sure I solidified this one.
Are you talking about Second Life, or are you promoting a new MMORPG?
No one mentioned 9-11. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
I assume it’s a reference to one of the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
The claim was that jet fuel doesn’t burn at a high enough temperature to melt steel. Therefore a bunch of burning jet fuel alone wouldn’t have been enough to collapse the towers. Therefore someone must have put something else there.
Even XKCD got in on the joke. https://xkcd.com/966/
You are nearly spot on: it isn’t just the heat it will produce, but the lack of ignition due to the oxygen required for ignition.
You’d be surprised at how much things aerosolise when they hit a skyscraper at 500 mph.
Not at all. Seen it with my own eyes. Seriously, the effect mirrors a controlled demolition.
I thought Avgas was 100ll, not jet fuel?
You’re correct; the terms are not interchangeable.
I can’t remember the which is which. I just remember that Avgas and 100ll are the two types of aviation fuel. My brain doesn’t have the ability to remember which is which. Which is probably why it’s a good thing I’m not a pilot…
Aviation gasoline or avgas is 100LL (100 octane, low lead), and jet fuel is Jet-A.
Once years ago, I used a few mL of gasoline as a solvent to clean grease from a part. To dispose of it, I put it in a can and tossed a lit match in.
The liquid gasoline extinguished the flame. Even gasoline is hard to ignite.
Does the average person know that it costs $2500 in fuel to get a boeing 747 off the ground?
So like four people in Business class cover it…
Yeah, I thought it was supposed to be the main expense for airlines.
Edit: Oh, that’s literally just takeoff.
I would have guessed more, and I have a pilot license!
I bet the average person knows it can’t melt steel beams.
And the average person should also know that steel doesn’t need to melt to lose a lot of it’s load bearing capacity. At 500-600 Celsius, only 50% of steel strength remains.
Which, going right back around to jet engines, is why superalloys are a thing.
Are aren’t stronger or even more refractory than normal steel, just more expensive, but they don’t soften at all until they’re about to melt.
Because no one takes shop class and bends some steel stock.
Even people who’ve never done it are vaguely aware of blacksmithing, though, right? This seems like more of a failure to apply everyday material properties to a skyscraper.
Plus there would be wind fanning those flames hard which could raise the temperature some.
But the other thing to consider is that the towers could have been built with substandard materials in the first place.
Plus aluminum, which planes are made of, does burn hot enough to melt steel beams. And concrete weakens in a fire as well.
Plus all the mind control chemicals they use to make the chemtrails probably burnt really hot. /s
IIRC, the materials were fine, but the spray-on fireproofing left large patches uncovered. While not a direct cause, it certainly didn’t help.
WTYP has a pretty good episode on the entire thing
This just in: scientists have determined that a more direct cause for the towers falling than defective spray-on fireproofing may exist. Rumors have begun to circulate that the WTCs collapse may be attributed to the two aircraft which collided with them. Details at 6.
(I kid, I kid)
Well, it would’ve collapsed either way, as you can see on the pictures during the fire that the metal is starting to buckle uniformly around the entire floor with the fire. But patches without insulation probably meant that it collapsed sooner than it could’ve.
Didn’t help anyone trapped, so the net result is the same in that I fail to see how 30 minutes extra before it crumbled would’ve made any difference
Are we still doing 9/11

I did not know, I must confess. I know now. Knowledge is power.
Its high flash point also makes it hard to ignite making it safer than gasoline.
Damn, forgot my lighter…
*Pulls out electric baton
*Gas station explodes
From a comic by MoringMark about Knights of Guinevere characters
Likely not. I thought it was highly volatile until I learned it was basically kerosene.
No. I wager the average person thinks its some kind of super dangerous super powered liquid explosion magic, because the average person is kind of an idiot.
I, however, did know its fancy kerosene













