Little Discworld Things

madmaudlingoes:

You know the joke in Men at Arms about the billiard balls? They’re made of “elephantless ivory” by the alchemists, but they have a nasty habit of exploding when used.

This was an actually real-world thing.

Owing to the high price of ivory (and, y’know, the over-hunting of elephants to the brink of extinction), in 1869 a billiards supply manufacturer offered $10,000 to whoever could make a synthetic ball that met the same specifications as ivory. A guy named John Wesley Hyatt came up with a nitrocellulose ball – nitrocellulose being both the basis of celluloid film and certain kinds of rocket fuel. Hyatt’s balls were extremely flammable, and even hitting them together too hard could cause a small explosion that sounded like a gunshot.

(Yes, in hindsight, that sentence was hilarious.)

So Discworld’s exploding alchemical billiard balls had a Roundworld equivalent, albeit not as dramatic. God damn it, Pterry.

And here I thought it was an extension on celluloid itself, also highly flammable.

TIL…

(via colouritlater)