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"Oh no, the GoPro!" - Thermite bonus video

Hi all!

In our last video we got extremely close to a thermite reaction, which unfortunately led to the demise of one of our GoPro's.

However, it kept recording all the way through!

You can watch the GoPro's full, first-hand, experience here. We hope you enjoy!

Casper and Team Veritasium

Comments

swan song

Edith Dubiner

Ask GoPro to sponsor the channel...

Jan Doggen

"Oh no, my Queen" feels haha

Shiroyasha

I asked specifically about the use case when thermite is used to produce pure metals. I didn't even think about the slag the when you weld train tracks. Your speculation runs along similar tracks as mine would have. Except... we don't need to speculate. The video about train tracks will be coming along from Veritasium

Bartosz Błaszkiewicz

When used industrially like with train track repair or shipbuilding, I think they calculate how much steel they need to fill the space and then put enough powder in to create that much steel and then the slag just hardens outside of the work area and can just be knocked off during the finishing work.

B M

+1, I expected a conveyor belt or rotating disk for this.

Max Goldstein

Good on the GoPro! Tougher than a Timex Watch!

Charles S. Cook

This is actually a pretty ringing endorsement for GoPro. And I think it was worth the loss -- it was some really insightful experimental science footage.

Kimberly Green

I wonder if a layer of aerogel would have provided some protection for the camera? I recognize aerogel isn’t completely transparent, so this could be impractical.

Harper Wilson

You explained how the heavy metal flows first, than the slag follows. But how do they separate them outside of the thermite reaction? Do they have two pans that they swap when they see a change in viscosity? Or maybe the fluids don't mix so easy? Maybe they cool the fluids so fast they don't have time to mix and you can just cut the pure pieces out? Or maybe they thought of something more clever?

Bartosz Błaszkiewicz

That reminded me of the video from Starship 29’s reentry as the flap it was filming started burning up and debris covered the camera lens.

Marshall Buhl


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