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by JackCh 2896 days ago
What are they actually going to call it? Bis-isoxazole is a mouthful. If people are afraid to talk about it for fear of mispronouncing it and looking foolish, will it see commercial success?
6 comments

The military loves cheeky shorthands and acronyms. They're really good at backronyms, too. It won't take long for them to come up with something like Bisox, oxaz, BIAX, BNT ("bomb, not TNT"), etc. Or maybe just the brand name of whoever is selling it.

Soon Hollywood catches up, and you'll hear Mark Wahlberg yelling for the "B round" in his next action movie.

The military will end up using composite explosives so they don’t call them by their compound name. C4 is just an RDX mixed in a stabilizing polymer putty (Semtex is the same with PETN added to the mix), the vast majority of explosives used these days are “PBX” or Polymer Bonded Explosives so the military will end up giving it some classification code which is easy to remember and write down on supply orders like C10 or w/e.
> BNT ("bomb, not TNT")

I think BNT should stand for “BNT is Not TNT”

> BNT

Imagine saying this in a noisy environment to a stressed artillery officer who is hard-of-hearing. How do you distinguish between "bee-en-tee" and "tee-en-tee"? If you're going to spell out "bravo November tango", then you'll probably want a different name.

If you go for cheeky, pick BADAZ.
It's not like it's gonna be sold in supermarkets. So a catchy name while helpful isn't an issue here.
I dunno, I'd buy it. Best fireworks ever.
The compound is Bis-oxadiazole; Bis-isoxazole was an earlier prototype compound.

I'd suggest BODAZ or OxAz.

BXD
Boomystuff
Bisso maybe.
Bix-Z