December 15th, 2009 | 
Author: Fireworks were developed by the ancient Chinese in the Second century BC and are the oldest and most basic form of rocket.
Many of our modern day weaponry can trace it’s history back to the firework, thanks to the fireworks major component `gunpowder’. These early fireworks were developed in to rockets and were used in warfare such as the invasion of China by the Mongols in 1279.The Mongols and Arabs brought gunpowder to the West and the idea of the cannon and hand gun were conceived by utilising the explosive properties of gunpowder.
The early firework was even the forerunner for the modern space rocket. It was the American scientist Robert Hutchings who swapped the solid fuel in fireworks for a liquid fuel system which pioneered modern space rocket technology that ultimately led to man landing on the moon in 1969.
There is such an array of fireworks available today, however, the basic principle is pretty much the same. Traditionally fireworks used gunpowder, comprising of 75% Potassium Nitrate, 15% Charcoal and 10% Sulphur to provide the explosive powder to give the firework the thrust to go into the air. Today however, fireworks may use a variety of other chemicals.
The firework has basically has two phases, the first phase comprises of tightly packed explosive material being contained in a shell. When a fuse is lit, it burns rapidly into the core of the rocket, the gunpowder in phase 1 burns and gives off hot exhaust gases which fire backwards and sends the firework shooting through the air. This is an example of Newton’s third law of motion; whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction. The strong form of the law further postulates that these two forces act along the same line. This law is often simplified into the sentence, “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
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