---

---

---

---

Science Current Events and Science News RSS Feeds

---

---

Email a Friend Printer Friendly

Physicists discover Guy Fawkes would have devastated Westminster

November 04, 2003

Had the gunpowder plot succeeded, Guy Fawkes would not only have destroyed the old palace of Westminster but would have caused chaos and devastation across central London, destroying Westminster Hall, the Abbey and the streets immediately surrounding them with structural damage being caused to buildings as far away as Whitehall.

Physicists have worked out for the first time the true extent of the damage Guy Fawkes would have caused if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded on 5th November 1605. Streets up to one third of a mile from the centre of the palace of Westminster would have suffered severe structural damage and windows would have shattered up to a kilometre away from the centre (picture available showing contemporary map of London with blast radius overlaid).

Physicists from the Centre for Explosion Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth have used explosion physics to work out that 2,500kg of gunpowder (the amount of gunpowder Guy Fawkes had packed in a cellar under the old Westminster hall) would be approximately equal to the same amount of TNT today and this would create a blast which would cause severe structural damage to buildings up to about 490m (about one-third of a mile) from the centre of the explosion.

Dr. Geraint Thomas, head of the Centre for Explosion Studies in the Department of Physics at Aberystwyth said:

"We can use the weight of explosive to work out how it will affect its surroundings. We know that the more explosive we have the more energy will be released when the charge is set off. From the pressure pulse generated by the explosion we can tell if windows are going to be smashed or if whole buildings will be demolished. As you move further away from the centre of the explosion, the effects get less and less until you might only hear a bang from far away. From the amount of explosive that Guy Fawkes had we can work out that if you are a third of a mile away you should be okay with just a few broken windows around you, further away and you might have just heard some noise".

He continued:

"This is assuming that TNT is as powerful an explosive as gunpowder and that the explosion was outside rather than in the basement. Gunpowder is generally not as strong as TNT, and the explosives were hidden in buildings, so the 'safe radius' should be a little bit less that predicted above, due to the reduction of total energy of the explosive and the energy absorbed by the walls when the bomb went off. However, if Guy Fawkes was an expert in explosives and so knew what he was doing and had the gunpowder confined in barells and well packed-in it could have been almost as powerful as the equivilent TNT explosion so this is a fairly good model."

Institute of Physics