Gunpowder: The Invention Of Squeeze Collapse

Throughout history, great world structures depended on the extraction of mined materials. Early civilizations depended upon sheer labor to extract these materials. This was shown to be very labor and time intensive. Especially early on when stone tools were the only thing available. The solution to this problem came in the late 1800s with the invention of dynamite.
Gunpowder is considered the first explosive to be discovered. It was first discovered many years ago in China and India. Early uses of gunpowder were primarily for military use but didn’t see wide spread until the 16th century. Due to gunpowder being a low explosive it was not used for much mining related activities.
Nitroglycerin was the first industrial explosive. It was first discovered in 1847 by chemist Ascanio Sobrero. It was a much stronger explosive compared to black powder, but due to it being very sensitive it was not practical to use in a mining operation. It is, however, the main component to dynamite.
Dynamite was the first safely manageable explosive that was stronger than black powder. It was discovered in 1867 by Alfred Nobel. Dynamite combines the highly explosive nitroglycerin with stabilizing materials to make the nitroglycerin not extremely shock-sensitive. It still remained as a very strong
explosive and is considered the first practical explosive to be in an industrial setting. Alfred is also known for inventing the blasting cap which is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Both inventions made commercial mining, excavation, and demolition safe and efficient. This would lead to many great projects to be completed quickly and was one of the fundamental building blocks of the industrial revolutions.
Modern explosives are different to dynamite but have some similarities.
For example, a very common modern explosive is ANFO which is made with ammonium nitrate. The ammonium nitrate in the ANFO acts as both the oxidizing agent and the absorbent for the fuel. ANFO is considered a high explosive and needs a larger quantity of secondary explosives to prime it like dynamite. One disadvantage of ammonium nitrate is that is hygroscopic making it very acceptable to water interferences and cannot be loaded in standing water. Instead, either a liner is placed in the borehole or another water-resistant explosive is used. ANFO is still considered to be one of the most widely used industrial
explosive.
In conclusion, the invention of dynamite caused great strides in the modernization of human society. Without it, we would not have been able to create stone structures in the amount of time that they were created in, and with early on stone tools extraction of materials for these structures would have been impossible.