High Explosives and Propellants
THE writer of a book on explosives is immediately faced with a difficult task of selection. He must decide what relative importances to place on military compared with commercial explosives, and on theoretical against practical aspects of the technology.
The quantity of military explosives made in the Second World War exceeded the total ever made for peaceful use by mankind. On this count it could be argued that military explosives should occupy a major portion of this book. On the other hand, wars are fortunately relatively shorter in duration than peace, so that at any particular time a reader is likely to be interested more in commercial explosives than in military.
More important, however, is to consider the contributions—good and bad—which explosives have made to the history of mankind. Any real assessment of this must show that the benefits which explosives have produced far outweigh their misuse in military pursuits. The explosives technologist, who has usually seen and perhaps even experienced the effects of explosives, is the last to want war or to want his products to be used for warlike purposes. It is no accident that Nobel, who founded the modern explosives industry, also founded the Peace Prize associated with his name. In this book the writer has followed his instincts and given pride of place to commercial, beneficial applications of explosives.
The writer has also dealt in greater detail than many authors would on the more fundamental aspects of his subject. He believes that the reader will be more interested in understanding the bases of the design and performance of explosives than in learning details of individual compounds or devices. If readers consider that the balance is wrong, the writer can only plead that there are no comparable books on the subject with which comparison could be made.
In deference to the wishes of the publishers, references in the text have been kept to a minimum and where possible to books thought to be freely available. The writer has, however, included a short bibliography to Chapter 2, because he is not aware of any general reference of recent date which covers the whole ground adequately.
This book is concerned with the British explosives industry. Practice in other countries has been discussed only when the comparison is thought to be of value. That is the intention of this series of books and is not in any way intended to decry products which satisfy well requirements in other, often widely different conditions.
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