[PDF] The chemistry of fireworks Michael S. Russell

This book has a glossary of terms at the beginning, most of which are ambiguous, some of which are just plain wrong. It seems as if the author tried to “dumb down” the terminology so anyone could understand it. However, in so doing, he’s really alienated his target audience, i.e., people with at least some chemistry background. He has major problems with the definitions of explosions and detonation/deflagration. These are definitions that need to be clearly defined, and he screws a lot of it up. He consistently refers to black powder as “gunpowder”, which may be a british thing, but it’s still annoying and misleading. Some of the equations are helpful, but because of the incorrect information supplied in other parts of the book, I question their validity. This book gives a general overview, and it is decent with pictures and the explainations, but I’d never recommend it to someone who wanted to know the terminology used in the pyro industry, because it’s mostly incorrect in this book. This book looks like it was put out in a rush. For example, on p.40, the book describes a “linear” equation, then gives an exponential one; it’s just poor editing and writing to get things like that screwed up. An experienced pyrotechnician would know the difference between the screwed up definitions and things, but then, an experienced pyro wouldn’t be reading this book. I found Weingart’s ‘Pyrotechnics’ more useful than this. For some more of the physics-related items, this book would be better, but if you want to know some Chemistry, get Shimizu’s ‘Fireworks’.