This liquid is "schizophrenic": shake it and it's a bomb, drink it and it's a life-saving medicine

If materials science also has a constellation, then Nitroglycerin must be Gemini, and the most crazy one.

In the chemistry world, it's known as "devil's sweat."
It looks harmless to humans and animals, like a cup of ordinary oil. But its character is extremely abnormal:
If you light a fire, it won't necessarily explode; but if you accidentally knock the cup, or just shake your hand, "BOOM"!

This extremely unstable temper caused it to be regarded as a toy of Death when it was first invented.
Who would have thought that 100 years later, it would be lying on the shelves of drugstores and become a portable amulet for countless elderly people.

1. Inventor’s Fear: Don’t touch it!

In 1847, Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero was tinkering with glycerol and nitric acid in the laboratory.
He synthesized an oily liquid. To test the properties, he placed a drop on a heated iron plate.

The explosion shattered the laboratory glass and left permanent scars on his face.

Soubre was horrified. He realized he had unleashed a monster.
He wrote in his notes: "This thing is too dangerous and cannot be controlled at all. It is best for humans to forget it forever."
He even kept this discovery secret from the outside world, for fear that some madman would use it to cause trouble.

But whatever you are afraid of, come back.
There is really a madman among his students.
The student's name is Alfred Nobel.

2. Tame the beast: Wrap thunder and lightning in soil

Nobel's obsession with nitroglycerin reached the point of madness.
He felt that as long as he could control this thing's temper, he could gain the power to blow up mountains.

But the price he paid was heavy.
In 1864, a big explosion occurred in Nobel's laboratory. His brother Emil was blown to pieces, and four other assistants died on the spot.
The Swedish government was so frightened that he banned him from conducting experiments in urban areas, so he could only move to a barge in the center of the lake to continue his experiments.

It was on that ship that a miracle happened.
Once, a jar of nitroglycerin leaked and the liquid seeped into the diatomaceous earth used for packaging.
Nobel was surprised to find that the soil, which had been filled with explosives, had become very docile. No matter how you hammer it or burn it, it will not explode. It will only explode if you detonate it with a detonator.

Dada! Dynamite was born.

Nobel sealed this extremely violent liquid into the soil.
Since then, humans have had the power to change the landscape. The Panama Canal, the American Western Railway, the Alpine Tunnel... Behind these engineering miracles are all nitroglycerin roaring.

Nobel made a fortune and became the richest man in Europe at the time. He was also called a "merchant of death" by the media.

3. Strange things in the factory: weekend headaches

Just when Nobel was selling explosives like crazy, a strange phenomenon occurred in the explosives factory.

The workers found that everyone felt refreshed when they went to work from Monday to Friday. Even the old workers with angina pectoris (heart disease) no longer had heart pain when working in the workshop.
But as soon as they went home to rest on weekends, these people began to suffer from severe headaches, chest tightness, and even heart attacks.

The workers joked: "This must be the boss's magic, forcing us to go to work."

Doctors were puzzled.
It was not until the end of the 19th century that the medical community discovered the truth: vasodilation.

It turns out that nitroglycerin is extremely volatile. Workers inhale trace amounts of nitroglycerin gas every day. When this gas enters the blood, it releases nitric oxide (NO).
Nitric oxide is like a pair of gentle hands that can instantly relax and expand tight blood vessels.

For angina patients, this is a miracle drug. Because the essence of angina pectoris is coronary artery blockage and insufficient blood supply. Once the blood vessels expand and blood flows through, the pain disappears immediately.
And when they don't work on weekends, their blood vessels constrict again, so they start to feel uncomfortable again.

4. Nobel’s final irony

This may be the greatest black humor in the history of science.

Nobel suffered from severe heart disease (angina pectoris) in his later years.
The doctor prescribed medicine for him. What do you think it was?
That’s right, “nitroglycerin”.

Nobel looked at the medicine bottle, and his heart was probably broken.
He wrote to a friend:
"Destiny is playing a cruel trick on me. I've been making money all my life making explosives, and now the doctors want me to drink them to stay alive."

Out of fear and stubbornness of "dynamite", Nobel initially refused to take it. He couldn't believe that something that could blow up a mountain could be stuffed into his mouth.
But he ultimately failed to survive the torment of a heart attack.
In 1896, the dynamite king died of a heart attack.

Less than 100 years after his death, nitroglycerin officially became the standard drug for treating heart disease (now known as "Jiuxin Pill" spray or sublingual tablets).
If you have an elderly person with a heart disease in your family, the first aid kit contains Nobel’s life-long efforts.

5. The same substance, two fates

Now, please picture this:

In a mine, blasters were carefully stuffing a tube of yellow dynamite into a crack in the rock, preparing to blast a tunnel.
In a hospital hundreds of kilometers away, a doctor was putting a white pill under the patient's tongue, preparing to snatch the person from the hands of death.

In these two scenes, exactly the same molecular structures are used.

It's like a knife.
Stabbing into the heart is killing, removing tumors is saving lives.

Conclusion

The most fascinating part of materials science is here.
There is no good or evil in matter itself, and even its "function" is uncertain.

Nitroglycerin is like a madman with a dual personality.
In Nobel's hands, it is Thor's hammer that destroys the world;
In the hands of a doctor, it is the kiss of life that gently soothes the heart.

In an extremely violent way, it not only exploded the tunnel leading to industrial civilization, but also exploded our blood vessels leading to the restricted area of ​​life.

So, don’t underestimate that inconspicuous little bottle of pills in your medicine cabinet. Its small body contains a violent temper that once shattered half of Europe.