• CanadaPlus
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    4 hours ago

    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.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Probably not because it’s extremely useless for 99% of people lol

    Does the average person know that a stalagmite is mostly calcium carbonate?

  • psud@aussie.zone
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    23 hours ago

    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

  • Tiral@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • CanadaPlus
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      4 hours ago

      Of all the media out there, action movies might be the worst for rotting brains. People can actually seperate porn or cartoons from reality.

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    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.

      • CanadaPlus
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah, I thought it was supposed to be the main expense for airlines.

        Edit: Oh, that’s literally just takeoff.

  • snoons@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    I bet the average person knows it can’t melt steel beams.

    • neidu4@piefed.social
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      2 days ago

      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.

      • CanadaPlus
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        3 hours ago

        Which, going right back around to jet engines, is why superalloys are a thing.

        They 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.

        • CanadaPlus
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          4 hours ago

          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.

      • bedwyr@piefed.ca
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • CanadaPlus
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          4 hours ago

          Plus aluminum, which planes are made of, does burn hot enough to melt steel beams. And concrete weakens in a fire as well.

        • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Plus all the mind control chemicals they use to make the chemtrails probably burnt really hot. /s

        • neidu4@piefed.social
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          1 day ago

          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

          • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            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)

            • neidu4@piefed.social
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              6 hours ago

              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

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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