Why do long explosives fascinate me so much (pic, obviously)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

[happyslug]

1. For the same reason people tend to like fires

We humans have been handling fire for over a million years. Control of FIRE was our first invention. Thus Mankind have always been fascinated by fire for control of fire is in our genes and this "fire gene" is very deep inside all of us for it what separated ancient man from his Chimp cousins. To primitive man (And I am using Man in its genetic sense i.e. meaning both male and females) fire not only represented warmth and home, but power. Fire was man's one great advantage over the Rest of God's Creatures. Without Fire Man was among the weakest of God's Creatures, but with fire Man was the most powerful. Thus man's fascination with fire and flames, for these are deeply embedded in our psych as part of what makes us Human.

[HereSince1628]

5. A question...

Not to underestimate the long time human fascination and association with fire, but can you give a reference about why do you think it was the first invention?

[happyslug]

6. That is a good one.

Writing was invented much later as was speech (Now believed to be about 100,000- 200,000 years ago). Thus what was man's first tool is open to debate. Fire is believe to have come under control of Man about 1-15 million years ago. The big question has been was fire the first invention or the hand Axe? While there are some researchers who believe hand axes were in use 2.5 million years ago (About 1 million years before the control of Fire) many other researchers question this.

The real debate is did proto man MAKE the hand Axe and kept it with him, or did proto man pick up any old rock chirped it to something he could use and than discard it when he no longer needed it? Even Today Chimpanzee have been seen "making tools" to perform a specific function than discarding that tool after the function has occurred.

Homo Erectus differently kept tools on him and made tools that he would need in the future. This is what I consider "tool usage" and appears about the same time as Home Erectus started to Control Fire. It is a debate, was the hand Axe man's first invention or was fire? We can debate this forever but given the lack of written records from the time period a debate without any resolution.

The tradition has been Fire was man's first tool and I am staying with that tradition until I see hard evidence against it. At the same time I am open to the comment that the Hand Axe may pre-date the control of Fire. Both require some thought of future usage, something you do NOT see in Chimpanzees.

For some comments on Early man, Fire and tools see:
http://kie.berkeley.edu/ned/data/E01-980521-006/full.html
http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/~wtucker/Homo_erectus.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~harryg/protected/chp22.htm
http://www.ecotao.com/holism/hu_habilis.htm
http://donsmaps.com/erectus.html
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~bramblet/ant301/fourteen.html
http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/image.html

Some sites related to Speech"
http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=34162
http://www.humanevolution.net/a/language.html
http://partners.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lieberman-eve.html

[indigobusiness]

2. They fascinate Senor Boosh, as well.

[DS1]

3. Kewel

[LoZoccolo]

4. That blowed up real good!

http://www.outernetweb.com/focal/disco/index.html

http://www.discodemolition.com