Fireworks Physics

7/4/2018

At a bunch of fireworks shows now, they have these shaped fireworks, like with smiley faces and hearts, and possibly Mickey Mouse, but those might just be the heart ones being weird. That’s my main point here, once that thing’s launched, anything can happen.

Fireworks are these varied shells filled with whatever’s explosive and pretty and they typically get balled up into a spherical shape without too much indication of what side is up, probably. It’s possible to set up shapes arranged in there and they will typically explode in that shape. However, every force acting on the shell as it’s launched can change the orientation and even the resulting shape to some degree, which becomes more visible from the shape’s “side”.

Essentially, I’ve seen many times with upside-down smiley faces and hearts aiming whichever way, all due to the physics at work. If someone’s just at the right angle, that heart can become a Mickey, or that Mickey might become a Dickey.

Also try not to set off all the fireworks at once unless you want a nuclear ball of hell of a new sun being created and then the entire state goes deaf for the year. Maybe that’s what Doctor Octagon wanted in Spider-Man 2, as in the first time they made a Spider-Man 2 movie and not the 20 other times that’s happened, or the games.

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