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How to Burn a Magnesium NeXT Cube
Saint Aardvark the Carpeted writes "How do you set a magnesium NeXT cube case on fire? It took this guy two years, *two* cases and the cooperation of Lawrence Livermore Lab's burn cell." A seriously bizarre tale, but worth a read if you're curious. And I have one of those cubes in my office... all sorts of fiendish ideas start.
from the article...
"The paint started bubbling, then burned away, leaving the black
anodized magnesium alloy. ("It's an alloy that is resistent to burning,"
the voice of the soon-to-be-ex-NeXT-employee came back to me.)"
//ct
There is no need to mark it as being a flame risk. The possiblity that it would catch on fire is nil. Bulk magnesium is very hard to burn because it is a very good heat conductor. If you have a lot of magnesium, it is very difficult to ignite, because it conducts heat away. and you can never get any part of it hot enough to ignite.
If you have a small piece (Like a strip that they use for chemistry demos), there is nowhere for the heat to go, so you can heat it up to the ignition point much easier.
Why do you think they had to go to Lawrence Livermore National Lab? It is not easy to generate that much heat safely.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
Yeah, Magnesium alloys typically provide their own oxygen when they burn. Wrong. Metals (alloys or otherwise) do not contain oxygen. However magnesium has sufficient affinity for oxygen that when it's hot, it will rip H2O apart to get more oxygen. That is, spray water on burning magnesium, you supply it with oxygen AND it releases hydrogen gas, which will drift til it mixes with some non-oxygen depleted air, and then probably ignite...
http://overtone.org/sass/cubefire.html is a mirror, if you're finding the main site to be slashdotted.