The Practical Pyromaniac
Build Fire Tornadoes, One-Candlepower Engines, Great Balls of Fire, and More Incendiary Devices
by William Gurstelle
Mem. Ed. $5.99
Pub. Ed. $16.95
You pay $1.99
Bonus Content
The Practical Pyromaniac
Ready to fire up your do-it-yourself skills? In The Practical Pyromaniac, William Gurstelle features 25 amazing projects that let you explore and safely play with fire. You’ll benefit from the step-by-step instructions, diagrams, photographs, and links to video demonstrations that Gurstelle provides throughout.
Starting with relatively simple investigations—such as the ability to relight a just-extinguished candle by igniting its smoke—we range far and wide. For example, you can create a flame inside a glass tube that emits a sustained musical tone and find out why it happens. In addition to creating your own torch using materials such as cotton rope and kerosene, you can make your own olive oil lamp. And even though we’ve all been told not to burn a candle at both ends, Gurstelle shows how doing just that helps us build a rotating “one-candlepower engine.”
Is it really possible to light a fire by rotating a stick? Yes, and you’ll see how. You’ll make your own “burning ring of fire” backpacker stove for outdoor meals, and a hydrogen generator that produces flammable hydrogen gas. Later on, we see how to generate “great balls of fire” by burning hydrogen in oxygen. And if you’ve ever wanted your very own arc light, now you can make one yourself out of carbon rods. Further along the author shows how to build your own photometer (with which you can measure a candle’s brightness). The final two projects allow you to create a fire tornado—which illustrates the effect air has on a fire’s shape, burning rate, and fuel consumption—and a propane flamethrower...the latter not to be used anywhere near flammable materials for obvious reasons!
Hot for science projects? The Practical Pyromaniac will keep your imagination sizzling.
Softcover : 224 pages
Publisher: Chicago Review Press ( June 01, 2011 )
Item #: 13-402102
ISBN: 9781569767108
Product Dimensions: 7.0 x 10.0 inches
Product Weight: 14.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Copyright © Bookspan. Scientific American® is a registered trademark, used under license. Unauthorized use prohibited. All rights reserved.
45007201205ADFL
Card Security Code
The card security code is an added safeguard for your credit/debit card purchases. Depending on the type of card you use, it is either a three- or four-digit number printed on the back or front of your credit/debit card, separate from your credit/debit card number. To make shopping at Scientific American Book Club® even more secure, we require that you enter this number each time you make a credit/debit card purchase. Please note that your security code will not be stored with us even if you have saved your credit/debit card information.
