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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi
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To: Ilaine who wrote (25540)5/24/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte  Read Replies (2) of 71178
 
The reason I suspect this as being urban legend has to do with the burning characteristics of hydrogen. Most flammable gases just go "whumph" when mixed with air. Not hydrogen - even with a little air mixed in it goes BANG. This property is unique to hydrogen - not even acetylene is as likely to detonate.
Since lighting a hydrogen burp means mixing in liberal amounts of pulmonary air - there would be an explosion inside the lungs or esophagus. Not enough to cause gooey Arnie effects, but enough to cause serious internal injury. Lungs just aren't very strong pressure vessels.
Pure hydrogen burns silently and with a completely colorless flame. The Hindenburg fire was dazzling not because of the hydrogen, but because of all the aluminized fabric and leather used in its gas bag.

To see what burning hydrogen looks like - view a tape of the Shuttle main engines spooling up. The flames are near-invisible, with the only prominent feature being a ghostly white shock gumdrop appearing just below the bell when flow maxes out. (And we're looking at more than a ton per second per engine roaring out of those nozzles, folks!) I suspect that the white comes from impurities. Maybe even ablated material from the combustion chamber and nozzle assembly itself. Cycle temperatures and pressures are in the "holy crap!" range.

End tech rant - resume fun with blueberries
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