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by margalabargala 14 days ago
> and without all the rushing air

That's the exploding bit though. You don't need containment, you just need the the airburst. A hyper-heated pocket of air that then expands rapidly is itself an explosion.

1 comments

>then expands rapidly

Except it doesn't. The breakup has roughly the same dynamics as dirt spreading as it gets out of a tip truck. The shockwave is not produced by the outward motion, it barely has any speed.

You're conflating the outward motion of the rock with the outward motion of the air.

The shockwave is traveling at the speed of sound.