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Rerun: Fireworks, Part Two

Published Jul 4, 2023, 3:55 PM

Where does the color come from in fireworks? How are those giant displays choreographed? We conclude our discussion on fireworks.

Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the Tech Area.

It is the fourth of July all over the world, but in the United States we celebrate the fourth of July.

We associate that with the.

Signing of the Declaration of Independence, although that that in itself is not entirely historically accurate, but that's part for the course with the way we observe stuff here in America. But yes, we are off today because of the fourth of July holiday, and so we are bringing you a classic episode. We ran part one of this episode yesterday, so if you miss that, you may want to listen to that first. This is called Fireworks Part two because the previous one was called tech Stuff Lights Some fire Works. Originally this episode published July twenty eighth, twenty fourteen, and at that time, Lauren Vogelbaum was my co host. She now is host of brain Stuff and other things of that nature. So she's been doing lots of podcast production and is killing it. But back in these days she was a fresh faced podcaster joining me to talk about fireworks. I hope you enjoy this classic episode and let's listen in.

As of about the Italian Renaissance, Yeah, people started adding different metals into the gunpowder to make it burn in different colors, right, And I suspect that this was tied into the fact that also around the Italian Renaissance, people were starting to make brilliantly colored paints of many different kinds, and the same metal compounds that were being used for those paints, I'm guessing is what got ported over into fireworks.

Absolutely. Yeah. They also found, you know, if you were able to get a metallic salt and say burn it, it would burn with a particular color of flame. So you would get a flame that would be green or blue or whatever based upon the metallic salts that were in that mixture. And that's when they said, hey, this firecracker stuff, if we were to put this in combination with the firecracker stuff, we'd get these different colors of light that would go off because the explosion could ignite a secondary charge that would have a mixture of these metallic salts in them. So we just mixed together the right way, we get the right color. Now, the important thing to remember is that these ingredients they don't change the chemical reaction of the explosion itself. It's more like adding a little flavor. So your basic ingredient is still the same. It's that black powder, but it's what you mix with it that gives you the bright, pretty colors.

Right, And to explain what creates those bright pretty colors, we need to get down to an atomic level of how photons are created.

Yeah or not? Well, yeah, given off, given off? Yeah. Yeah. So if you have an atom, one of the things that one of the sub atomic particles that make up that atom is the electron. Right, You have electrons that surround the nucleus with neutrons and protons or in the case of hydrogen, just a proton. And if you were to add energy to that atom, you would excite the electron. And I don't mean it'd be like ooh, I cannot wait until Avenger's two age of ultron comes out.

Actually that's kind of I imagine that the dance that the electron does is very much like that dance that I do.

Yeah, the little little arms are at shoulder height and clenched in fists if you want to envision it, And then you just kind of wiggle a little bit. So these electrons, Yeah, they get excited from their normal energy state, which is called the ground state. That's the one that they naturally inhabit when they're just hanging out exactly.

So that excited state will kind of push the electron further out.

Yeah. So the thing is this is not sustainable. For if you take the energy source away, then the electron will gradually come back down to its ground state, but it has to give off all that energy it accepted in the process, all.

Right, So when it snaps back, it gives off energy in the form of a photon.

Right, And depending upon the element, you will get a different color of light, different.

A different wavelength of photons exactly.

Yeah. The photon's light is dependent upon its wavelength.

The amount of energy that it has equals the color that you see.

Yeah. So, and the thing is, once you know which elements are generating a certain color, it's going to be that way all the time.

It's pretty dependable.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have a list of colors and a list of the elements the metallic salts that are commonly used to create said colors in your typical fireworks display. So we're going to alternate describing these. Do you want me to go first?

It's the longest list, so all right.

Here we go. All right, So for the color going by the way, in the order of ROIGBIV. Technically we're doing roug bit because indigo actually gets turned into indigo and violet get turned into purple. Also, I guess it's technically roug BIPs because we have an S at the end. All right, fair enough, here we go, starting off red. To create the color red, you would typically add metallic salts such as strontium salts, lithium salts, lithium carbonate, or strontium carbonate, which creates a very bright red. So the Again, depending upon which ones you use, you get different hues of whatever color you're looking at.

Sure, orange you've got calcium salts or calcium chloride.

Yellow you have sodium salts or sodium chloride.

Green can be barium compounds plus a chlorine producer YEP or barium chloride YEP.

Blue would be copper compounds plus a chlorine producer you're probably noticing some trends here, or copper chloride.

Purple can be a mixture of and red compounds. So like strontium and copper yep.

And then you have silver, which is essentially something like aluminum, titanium or magnesium that's just burning. And those things burn really super bright. That's what gives fireworks their their silvery sparkly look. Yeah, so those are your basic ingredients. So how do we end up with the starburst patterns? I mean, obviously, if you just had an explosive with just these metallic salts mixed willy nilly in there and it exploded, it would just be a big mass of light in different colors. But we see these beautiful starburst patterns that come out. So what is it that causes that. Well, it's all in the actual manufacture and design, the layout of baracle design of right. Yeah, it's it's how you have situated the various metallic salts and you put them well.

Well, okay, so we mentioned we mentioned at the end of the last episode that the basic let's run down again, the basic way that a firework is composed.

Sure, okay, So if you were looking at a firework from top to.

Bottom, if you cut one right in half, yeah.

So the if you cut it right and half you would see that in the center is a burst charge. That's that's your your black powder that's designed to push everything outward in whatever formation you happen to have.

And then surrounding that, you're going to have some kind of a clay or other material that's holding what's called in the industry stars.

Yeah, this is the metallic salts that are placed in and these these stars are small, they're like three or four centimeters across, so they look like pellets, and the pellets can be put around. There's also black powder around those, so it can really project them out and also ignite them so that they burn properly. Now you've got these layouts that will determine exactly what kind of effect you'll have. It's also the shape of the projectile shell itself, but really it's the layout of those stars. If you put the stars in a really tight circle around this burst charge, then when the firework goes off, you're going to get a perfect circle that expands outward as these metallic salts ignite and fly outward. And the cool thing is that a lot of these stars they have it where it's a three hundred and sixty degree thing. But because of the way we perceive fireworks, it looks to us more like a two dimensional circle that expands out, but it's actually going out in all directions. It's a true explosion if you were somehow able to be in the middle of one. For example, if you were I don't know, to fly a drone with a video camera on it into a fireworks display, which happened this year, then you would be able to see that it explodes outward in all directions, not just in a two dimensional circle, which is pretty cool. At any rate, you end up mixing those metallic salts with an oxidizer or reducing agent, which is also a fuel. Oxidizers and reducers work together to create the Bernie Bernie, and then also a binder which holds all the stuff together. Now, the oxidizers in the stars aren't usually potassium nitrate like you would find in black powder, because those oxidizers don't allow for high temperatures that are needed to produce the chemical reactions necessary for the different colors. In other words, potassium nitrate doesn't burn hot enough to ignite those metallic salts, so we usually end up going with something like potassium chlorate, which we mentioned in the previous episode. Creates these even more spectacular explosions or combustions, just it burns even faster than regular black powder does, making it much more dangerous. But that's what you need in order to generate these colors. Although again also that we mentioned in the last episode, people are looking at alternatives because potassium chlorate is not the best thing in the world to get in the environment. Once it has combusted, you get chloride for one thing, not a good stuff, but you do get those more intense reactions which allows the starbursts to ignite and fly outward.

We're going to take a quick break talking about fireworks and listen to some messages from sponsors that might spark your interest.

So you would typically have lots and lots of these stars packed into a single firework and you place them meticulously inside the rocket. And bi meticulously, I mean this is done by hand. People hand make these fireworks so that the patterns are exact. They will place the stars strategically. This is how you are able to get something like a smiley face effect because it's all based on physics that you know exactly how far something's gonna fly based upon the amount of black powder in there and it's orientation within the firework itself. So there's nothing special in the sense of there's no special tech that makes this heart shape or this smiley face. It's all in how those stars are right in there.

It's very careful chemistry and mix and physics.

Physics, Yeah, physics does the rest for you, as if you've done your job correctly in the design of the physical firework. Physics takes care of the rest. It'll just make stuff go boom and it'll fly the way it's supposed to fly based upon where you put it.

And I'm sure machines could could even more precisely than humans create these mixtures and put them down in But the thing is that machines tend to get a little bit warm and sparky while they're doing their thing. Yea, So overall it's a lot. I mean, my hand is way less sparky than most machines that I know.

Yeah. So also get rid of that stack electricity before you go in there. Yes, but see, one thing you could do is you could use computer programs to help you figure out what's the ideal layout.

I'm sure, I'm sure that those algorithms exist.

Yes, yeah, they do. Where you can actually you have all because the laws of physics are pretty consistent. You know, we don't generally have our laws turned upside down from one day to the next.

As we'll talk about in the next section. There are some factors that can cause a little bit of havoc. Weather, humidity, ye kind of stuff. Pressure, I'm sure.

So looking at a rocket completely in cross section, let's say you're cutting it in half long ways, not horizontally, so vertically, and you're looking at it from top to bottom, here's what you would have. You would have a one main fuse that would lead down from the top of the projectile into the firework. That would ignite two separate other fuses. All right, So you've got one fuse that's a time delay fuse, and it burns more slowly. Then you have a quick burning fuse, which obviously burns faster. The quick burning fuze goes along the outside of the firework down into its base. That's where you have the lift charge. That's the black powder that's going to provide the force to project the firework into the sky. Right the second the time delay fuse will continue to burn, and if you've designed the firework correctly, again based upon the laws of physics. You will have it ignite it just the right arc right right, usually when the firework has reached the peak, Yeah, exactly, and so that would light the burst charge that's the one that has all the stars centered around it. So you've got two charges, the lift charge and the burst charge, and the two have to be separated, or else you just get a mortar that explodes in a bright color of light, which we've had happened before that accidents have happened.

Yes, and then right, and then each of those little stars inside the package have their own oxidizers that are going to set off.

Yeah, each at the stars exactly. And you may even have a multi break firework which would have multiple chambers that have burst charges and stars in them, so that you get multiple explosions from one projectile. Those would have even separation charges. You can think of it kind of like a rocket that goes into outer space. You know, when the engines are done, you have the little separator charges that explode, separating the engines away so that the rest of the vehicle can continue going off into space. Yeah, same sort of thing with your basic firework, except of course you're not shooting it nearly as high, but you have little little Yeah, you have a little separation charges that will allow the multi breaks to happen. Meanwhile, that fuse just continues to slowly go through the entire firework, lighting each section in the right order. Yeah, so it's pretty cool.

So let's talk about some of these different kinds of shells and what exactly they do.

Sure, yeah, so these are terms in the fireworks industry. So the kind of shell you have, the design of it, the physical shape of the shell, as well as the layout of the stars are what determine the how it behaves. So for example, I guess we can alternate with these two. You have a palm shell, which contains large comets or charges in the shape of a solid cylinder. These travel outward, they explode and then curve downward like the limbs of a palm tree. So those are you know, now you'll be able to impress your friends when you watch a fireworks display. That's a palm charge. It's a classic palm clip. Really well done.

You've also got the round those perhaps expectedly explode in a spherical shape, usually of colored stars.

Yeah, this is what I always think of when I think fireworks. This is the particular style. I think of just the big round globe of glowing stars like red or green flying outward.

I actually think of the palm first.

Yeah, I can see it all depends on I guess, your own personal experience. I've seen a lot of Disney fireworks, and these round shells.

Are They're very fond of them there.

Yeah, because if you do three of them in the right orientation.

They look like a mickey head.

Yes, exactly. So then you have the ring shell. This explodes to produce a symmetrical ring of stars. The way this works is that again, if you were to cut a ring shell in half, you would see just a perfect ring of the the pellets, the star pellets around the burst charge, and it would just shoot them all out in a circle, you know, in equal directions. So that's how that one works.

Then you've got a willow. These contain stars with a high charcoal composition to make them really burning so that they'll fall out in the shape of willow branches and stay lips, stay visible sometimes even until they hit the ground.

Yeah, these are the ones that you know, you see those sparkles and they just the long trail of sparkles as they slowly descend. They're very, very impressive.

We're making so many gestures over here, folks.

There's a lot of like spirit fingers going on inside the studio right now. Then you have the roundel, which bursts into a circle of maroon shells that then explode in sequence. Maroon shells is that the color actually no In fireworks language, maroon shells are shells that make a boom noise. These are the ones that I really didn't like as a kid, the very loud bangs. So, by the way, again, the way you create that loud bang is you really compress that black powder in fireworks factories, the way I've seen this is that you create the parchment shell, the black powder's in it. You then have that shell wrapped in string that is very tightly wound so it compresses it. Then you put wet parchment paper on the outside of it, tightly wrapped so that when it dries, it compresses it even more. Oh wow, yeah, pretty impressive.

Our next type is the chrysanthemum shell, which bursts into like a spherical pattern of stars that leave a visible trail. So the effect is something like a chrysanthemum blossom.

Yep. Then you have the pistol, the PI S T I L, which is like the chrysanthemum shell, but this one has a core that is a different color than the stars that fly out from the middle. So the middle is one color, the stars the second color.

You can have just a maroon shell.

Yep.

So if you just just a bang.

Yeah, I hated those. And then you had the serpentine, which is my strategy, and halo which never works. But no, a serpentine fireworks shell bursts to send small tubes of incendiaries skittering outward at random paths, which may culminate an exploding stars. So if you ever see the ones that have like the crazy spinneys that fly off, yeah, those are serpentines. So those are your basic types of fireworks shells. Of course, there are other very on these, or there's some that use this as a basis and then they create a different effect. But if you were in the fireworks trade, those are the kind of terms you would be hearing, and people would just call them out as they would see them launch, like, oh, that's a round L, that's a serpentine. You wouldn't have to say that's a maroon because everyone would be going what But anyway.

So we've talked a little bit about this, but actually launching fireworks, especially in terms of displays.

So yeah, the basic one we've covered the idea that you know you have the slow burning fuse and the quick burning fuse. The quick burning one lights the black powder. One thing we didn't mention is that you do have to have a mortar, which is essentially a pipe that has a closed off end on one side. And you know, in the old days, you would essentially light the one main fuze, drop the package into the mortar, and then run the heck away before everything started going bonky. So once that lift charge ignites, it creates a lot of gas and that gas expands and that's what provides the thrust to push the package out of the.

Mortar and into the air. So if this sounds a lot like our discussions about things like cannon and flintlock pistols and things of that nature, it's because it is. We're talking about expanding gases. It's the same thing that creates the the propulsion for your basic firearm.

It's creating a push yep.

So you've got your mortar and your your lift charge, and that's all you need to be able to launch it properly. These days we don't necessarily need to have someone physically light a fuse and then dump it into a mortar.

That does right. There are computerized fuses that will I mean not self light but no. No.

What essentially you've got is you set up your your mortar system that already has the various packages in each mortar as it's supposed to be, and then you have an electrical charge that can create the spark to light the fuse, so that way everything can be done from a distance. You can either have it where it's manually done, where you push a button and that button is what creates the spark, or you could have it fully automated, where you've got a full program and you say, at this time stamp and when this program runs, this particular spark needs to happen, and in that case you can launch a firework. So this is where you get those big choreograph displays. Right, You've got a essentially a program that has a beginning to the end. And think of it like a video on YouTube. You would you look at the video and you'd see, oh, it's seven man's twelve minute twelve seconds long. I want to see what happens at minute three and twelve seconds and you go straight to that point and you look at that frame. Well, in this computer program, you would be able to see which switches were essentially being thrown electronically not mechanically necessarily these days, and you could say, oh, well, all right, at that point, mortars seventeen three and forty nine, all fire. There's a roundel in the center, there's a chrysanthemum, and there's a pistol, and all three go up simultaneously to create the effect you're going for. And you know exactly what's in which mortar, you know, you program that ends.

You put them there.

Yeah, you put them there, and you say to the computer program, this is the thing that's in this other thing, and you cut.

And create your fuses. Fuse technology also has a lot to do with how all of this is going to go off, and fuses are just really basic things if you've never created one yourself, that are made of some kind of fuel yep, that's coated or possibly soaked or infused with some kind of oxidizer yep. And the exact materials and ratios of materials that you use are going to give you these these different time.

Effects right whether or not it'll burn at say, you could have the same length of fuse and one of them might take fifteen seconds to burn all the way through, and the other one might burn all the way through in three seconds. Again, it all depends upon the stuff you've put into that fuse, the oxidizers, any other kind of fuel you've imbued the fuse with. So once you know the physics and assuming your chemistry is good, you can have very consistent results from one firework to the next. So that assumes a lot. It means that you have to be very consistent in all the ingredients you use. You have to be consistent in the mixtures, the proportions you're using, as well as consistent in the placement of stars and the fuses that you use. But if you are, if you're really good about that, then you know how far the thing is going to fly based upon the amount of lift charge in it and its weight, because that's the two things that are going to determine how far projectile flies is how heavy is it and how much thrust are you giving it. Then you would also be able to determine when it's going to explode based upon the type of fuse that leads to that verse charge. So once you know these things, you can start to work backward. Right. So let's say that you have a piece of music that you particularly want to set your fireworks display to. And since I'm a huge Disney fan and Disney is famous for this, let's say it's when you wish upon a star, and when you hear the word star, clearly you want to have a starburst effect, right, you want to have the gorgeous starburst effects. So the crowd is oohing and eyeing right at the right moment. So what you would do is you would take that song and you would look at the time stamp for when the word star is mentioned. From that time stamp, you start to work backward and you say, all right, based upon when this happens in the song, when does that burst charge need to ignite? And then working backwards from that point, you know, you know when the burst charge needs to ignite so that you get the effect you want. You then say, all right, well i want it to be at this particular height and I'm firing it from this particular location. So based on that, you know the distance that the projectile has to go so they can be at the right height and explode at the right time. That tells you how large a lift charge you need to get the projectile there, and how quickly that quick burning fuse needs to burn in order for it to ignite, and what time you need to push or push the button or have it automatically expect exactly. So again you just work backwards. You know, you know when you want the effect to happen, so then you work backwards to find out when it has to initiate that fuse burning for the first time. So it actually is is pretty easy in that respect, but it does require that you have a very good knowledge of how the physics works. So that and it also requires that those fireworks are consistently made.

Yes, so you've worked out the chemistry correctly, right.

So that way when you use all right, we're going to use firework number seven, this this particular type of firework every single time, because I mean, like Walt Disney, the Disney Parks, they do these these fireworks displays nearly every night, particularly in the summer, right, So then that means it has to be exactly right each time. So the fireworks have to be consistent and they have to be ignited at the same time, the consistent time throughout each of these displays. But it's really pretty cool. Also, you might wonder what exactly is making that boom noise.

Yeah, Well, we've been talking a little bit about expanding gases. Yeah, and that's basically it. The expansion of this stuff in the firework displaces a pretty large quantity of air.

Yeah, that air has to go somewhere, so it ripples outward really fast, right, Yeah, it's essentially a shock wave. Yep, So that's what makes the boom. Yeah. So of course, the more black powder you can pack into a small space, the bigger the boom. Again, it has to be compact because if it's just loose, then it just it just burns, burns, It burns really fast. In fact, there are a lot of people who get really picky about the terms igniting versus exploding, because they say, well, technically, gunpowder just burns really, really really fast. It's not truly explosive. Yeah, but if you were to put it in a very compact area, then you get that explosion because of the rapid combustion.

We got some more to say about fireworks. Before we get to that, let's take it another quick break.

So we've really kind of covered all the basics about, you know, how these things work, the way that you would coordinate stuff. But we've still got some fun, little goofy trivial facts that I wanted to cover. So back in nineteen fifty eight I mentioned this a little bit. Disneyland introduced its first fireworks show. It was called Fantasy in the Sky, and Walt Disney came up with this idea, or actually asked the imagineers to come up with an idea of how do you keep people in the park after it gets dark?

And I guess this is why to this day Disney uses fireworks displays almost nightly.

Yeah, well, it turned out to be one of those things that really really worked well. People would stay in the park longer, which ultimately means they'd be willing to spend more money. I mean you the longer you keep someone there, the more likely they are going to walk out with one of those.

Dolls Mickey lemonades and Mickey dolls.

Ye there, the more churros they'll eat. Disney churos are the best. You know, their ice cream is pretty awesome too. Okay, I love Disney. But anyway, the launch site for the fireworks was backstage, and each firework at that time had to be lit manually. There's actually some video that you can watch of the various people who had to run back and forth and light the fireworks in the right sequence. These early fireworks weren't choreographed the way the modern ones were. It wasn't like you had park wide music and the fireworks went off of the but they were like really impressive displays. The displays, by the way, and Disney parks all depend upon where you which park you're in because some of the places like Disneyland, Paris and uh and Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney See have specific limitations on how high fireworks can go. So the ones that you'll see in say Florida and California are different than the ones you would see in these other parks because of those local laws. Sure, and since the days of Fantasy in the Sky, they've kind of upgraded. Like I said, they've got the fully choreographed ones.

Yeah, yeah, with quite a few shells.

Yeah. The Disney World's Wishes display has five hundred and fifty seven firing cues. They have more shells than that, but just five hundred and fifty seven separate queues in that one display, So five hundred and fifty seven different times there are multiple shells going up into the sky. That's incredibly complex. I think it's like seventeen minutes long something like that. So it's a really long display, so really impressive. I mean obviously, if it were like three minutes long and there's five hundred and fifty seven firing cues, you would just be blind and deaf by the end of it.

Yeah, that sounds a little bit whelming right there. Yes, they've also engineered their system to use compressed air for launches rather than that initial blast. Yeah, we've been talking about an initial blast forcing something out out of the firing tube. But yeah, but they're using compressed air, so it probably reduces their cost a lot. You only need that single explosion, and it reduces the amount of smoke that's created.

Yeah, so they don't have to because obviously those early displays emit that once the display was over, you had this kind of cloud of smoke hanging over the Magic Kingdom.

Yeah.

Yeah, so this way they are able to avoid that. Also, I mean, you're just using giant air canons. How cool is that. In the United States, at least, fireworks are technically classified as two different types of explosives at the same time because of the different effects. So the fact that they have the one blast for propulsion and the other blast that's truly the explosion. You have low level and like an intermediate level of explosive classification just for fireworks, So it gets two to one.

As of the recording of this podcast, the largest fireworks display on record happened on December thirty first, twenty thirteen in Dubai, during which they exploded four hundred and seventy nine thousand, six hundred and fifty one fireworks.

That's a lot.

It stretched across about sixty miles of seafront.

That is an enormous fireworks display. Yeah, the air would look as if it were on fire, I imagine by yeah. Yeah, Well, we kind of have to because I don't think anyone else can afford to do that.

No, no, and again we do want to impress upon you that these are I mean beautiful and miracular, Well not miraculous, they're technological. These are beautiful, technological feats of engineering. And physics and chemistry all at the same time.

That will totally blow your fingers off.

They will super blow your fingers off, y'all.

Don't play with them, no, yeah, and I know there are a lot of people who do, like their little backyard fireworks display for Fourth of July here in the US or the New Year's Eve or whatever.

Just just you know, stay sober. Folks.

Have a spotter, yeah, have you know your fire handling stuff like a fire extinguisher is always a good idea. Just practice safety and be be alert, you know, enjoy yourself, but mind and don't make them at home, please, Right, these are these are explosives, and explosives are inherently dangerous, so just be careful. Even sparklers are using black powder, right, that's that's one of the mixers, and they have like the little metal flakes like aluminum or whatever in them so that they create those bright silver sparks. So these are things that will burn. They'll burn hot. They will burn you if you're not careful, So just show caution. Enjoy yourselves though, because these displays can be really really impressive. I like to let other people handle it for me because knowing how excellent prone I am. I realize that it would be a terrible idea to put me in charge of any kind of fireworks displays.

Oh yeah, no, given the opportunity, I will burn myself every time. Yeah, I have to remind myself approximately daily that hot things are.

Hot, right, exactly right? Oh yeah, that thing that glowing red? Now, I remember why it's glowing red. It's because of that those excited electrons, the photons. Yeah.

That was the conclusion of the two part series about fireworks fireworks Part two. In this case, Lauren and I had a lot of fun talking about that and researching fireworks.

I used to really.

Hate fireworks as a kid. I think it was a sensory thing and that it was just the very loud bangs coupled with the very bright lights were upsetting to me to the point where I would say that the lights looked loud. It was a weird thing. And you know, I don't think I had synesthesia or anything like that. I think it was just me trying to communicate that I did not find them a pleasant experience. I like them now, but yeah, as a kid, it was a bit much. I also thought balloons were just a loud noise waiting to happen. So you know, probably some probably some conclusions we can draw from that, But I was like, you know, forty five years ago, so I'm gonna just set that aside. But yeah, I am a big fan of fireworks these days, and in fact, I really would love to sit down and talk with someone who has worked on a coordinator level on like big, big fireworks displays, something like a Disney World display, or a big Fourth of July celebration or a New Year's Eve celebration, that sort of thing, just to talk about the kind of planning that goes into it and how much of it is plotted down and how much of it is left to you know, some element of chance because you don't have control over all the factors you can't control, for example, the wind. That kind of thing.

I would love to have a conversation with someone. So I'm going to be on the lookout to kind of talk about that because I think, you know, there's the other fascinating aspect of fireworks technology, which comes down to crafting a show through explosives. It's just something there's something interesting about the elegance of crafting a show mixed with the you know, for lack of a better word, the violence of explosions, and I really would love to learn more about it. Anyway, I hope that you are all having a safe Fourth of July in the United States or otherwise, whether you are celebrating or you are just going through a regular July day. For those of you who are celebrating, please please, please, please be careful. Every year we see news items about people who have become injured through you know, working with fireworks, so you want to be very careful. Don't take that lightly. It's important to have fun, but more important, I think, to stay safe and healthy. And with that, I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You mean

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