Quote:

Investigators are trying to determine if the devices were intended to detonate or simply to sow fear. Officials told the AP that the devices were not rigged like a booby-trapped package bomb that would explode upon opening. They had timers and batteries but never went off.

The officials were still uncertain whether the devices were poorly designed or never intended to cause physical harm.

---

Quote:

Oxley, the explosives expert from Rhode Island University, said she suspected a single bomber, whereas former CIA agent Bradley said multiple people were probably involved because 'it's hard to coordinate that mail delivery on your own'.

---

Quote:

'There's a little bit of disconnect, mentally for the person who's doing this, it doesn't sound like it's a cold calculating person like Ted Kaczynski,' Bradley said.

---

Quote:

'The small size restricts what materials might actually function in it,' said Oxley, who has built 130 pipe bombs at the request of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to aid investigators.

---

Quote:

'This is more amateur than professional, but there's also professionals who could have wanted it to look that way.'

---

Quote:

'What they wanted to do was scare people, cause disruption, but not necessarily hurt anybody, because if they'd wanted to hurt people the bombs would have gone off,' Matthew Bradley, a former CIA agent, told Reuters.

---

I'm sure the CIA doesn't know what they're talking about though. Not like they'd have any experience with the psychology of people that make IEDs

Quote:

OK, so if you directly connect the two terminals of a battery, there is very little resistance in the circuit and you will drain the battery very quickly. However if you have a very simple circuit, for example a light bulb connected to the battery, the battery will drain slowly based on the watts used by the light bulb. My question is, if this light bulb provides only a little resistance, wouldn't a lot of current flow through and therefore drain the battery quickly?

---

Quote:

You are correct. If the light bulb only has a small resistance the battery will be drained fast.

That is true for any circuit, be it simple or be it complex. It's a matter of total resistance.

---

Quote:

So by this reasoning, wouldn't a 100W light bulb with its greater resistance drain a battery more slowly that a 5W light bulb which would resist less? – Kenneth Spencer Feb 8 '15 at 19:44
It depends on the voltage rating of the light bulb. A 220V 100W light bulb has a resistance of (220V)^2/100W = 484 \$\Omega\$. A 5W 220V bulb has (220V)^2/5W = 9680\$\Omega\$. So the less wattage bulb has a higher resistance. And will drain the battery more slowly.

---

koods said:

Holy shit dude. Please stop. You have absolutely no clue what you are talking about when it comes to electrical circuits.

---

Quote:

Fireworks mortars are two-stage; the round section contains the main explosives that produce the sky effects; the lower cylindrical section contains a propellant charge to launch them into the air. Since the propellant must go off first, the fuse attaches at the side of the propellant section near the bottom of the mortar. Yet the wires are attached to the top of the mortars and no fuse is visible.

Electricity is not an efficient way to set off a fireworks mortar. They use a fairly primitive, low-power type of black powder, which is activated by a spark or heat from a fuse. In order for an electrical current to set off the mortar, it would have to be substantial enough to activate the powder by heat. The type of clock attached may include an alarm function, but the current level is minuscule (a few microamps). I know this from experience; one of my early projects was a similar clock used to energize a gong to wake me up in time for work. It took several stages of amplification circuitry as well as a separate power supply, to do that. The power needed in this case would be at least as great as what I used for that gong, and probably more.

Two wires are used, but they go to separate mortars on each end of the device. In order to ignite the mortar, even if there was enough power, both wires would be needed at each mortar to create a circuit, or there would have to be a heating element connected internally. If there were such a heating element, the mortars would be superfluous.

A pipe bomb works by holding in the pressure of the explosion until it builds to a point sufficient to rupture the pipe. The stronger the pipe, the stronger the blast. PVC is a very inefficient material for a pipe bomb, because it has a ow yield strength and will literally melt from the ignition itself before high pressure can be obtained. It will work, but poorly.

---

koods said:

I can’t explain how you’re wrong. 

---

LOL I'm supposed to be wrong but he can't say how.

Seriously_trippin said:

wwaaaaaaahhhh I'm a liberal waaaahhhhh

---

Quote:

a reply to: luthier

Well I spent 10 years in Marine Corps EOD. And all of TheRedneck's observations about the devices are accurate.

I haven't seen anything so blatantly a hoax device since the "the Times Square bomber" tried using fire works with bags of fertilizer.

---

Quote:

FYI: I might be a redneck, but I'm a redneck with an engineering degree. And a love of all things that go "BOOM!" 

"There is no personal problem that cannot be solved with an appropriate application of sufficient high explosives."

TheRedneck

---

Necropolis said:

abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1222144/pg3#pid23892619]http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1222144/pg3#pid23892619

---

waves said:

Necropolis said:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1222144/pg3#pid23892619

---

Ah, well if some random guy on a conspiracy theory forum who is claiming to be an expert says it, it must be true, right?

---

Necropolis said:

Seriously_trippin said:

wwaaaaaaahhhh I'm a liberal waaaahhhhh

---

Guess I struck a nerve by posting my opinions and articles with opinions from experts on the subject that agree with me.

---

koods said:

What are you going on about? I don’t think they are real bombs either. I’m talking about the fact that your analysis is based on your hair brained and completely ignorant notion of how electricity flows through wires. And I’m not going to try to explain it to you. A number of us have tried and you just don’t get it. Take a class in electonics if you want to learn about these concepts.

---