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Lander

Elliot

Roger

Rohit

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Mohsen

Tristan

Tag

Tyson

James

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Alison

Ellie

Libby

Jessica

Maryam

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Kai

Andrew

Billy

Cate

William P.

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Claim:

The Hindenburg Disaster was caused by the positively and negatively charged parts of the ship causing a reaction with the hydrogen, leading to a spark that ignited the flame.

Evidence:

California Institute of Technology. (2021, May 17). History's mysteries: Caltech professor helps solve Hindenburg disaster. Caltech. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

Owen, J. (2013, March 2). Hindenburg mystery solved after 76 years. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hindenburg-mystery-solved-after-76-years-8517996.html

Explanation:

The ship, due to the light rain, was slightly wet to begin with. According to observations at the scene of the event, the Hindenburg caught fire four minutes after it was moored to the ground. According to Dr. Giapis, however, his theory was that the spark should have been created 10 to 15 seconds after the ropes touched the ground, not four minutes later. To account for this discrepancy, Dr. Giapis sought an explanation. Before the ropes were moored to the ground, the Hindenburg collected a positive charge in the atmosphere. When the ropes were dropped, electrons from the ground moved up the frame, giving the ship a positively charged skin and a negatively charged frame. The negatively charged frame then started pulling more positive charge out of the atmosphere, pulling more positive charge out of the atmosphere (which was fraught with storms) onto the ship's skin. This created sparks that ignited the flame. The scientist team led by British engineer Jem Stansfield also led experiments, came to a very similar conclusion.

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History’s Mysteries: Caltech Professor Helps Solve Hindenburg Disaster

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Konstantinos Giapis delves into the science of the iconic accident for a PBS special.

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Claim:

The cause of the Hindenburg disaster was an electrostatic discharge that lit leaking hydrogen gas on fire.

Evidence:

Velasco, Emily (2021, May 17). History’s mysteries: Caltech professor helps Solve Hindenburg disaster. California Institute of Technology. (n.d.). https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

Follows, Mark (2023, June 6). What ignited the Hindenburg?. RSC Education. https://edu.rsc.org/feature/what-ignited-the-hindenburg/2000137.article

Explanation:

The Hindenburg accumulated a static charge as it traveled through the choppy weather. Similar to the shock you experience when touching a doorknob, the Hindenburg might have received a static discharge as it approached its landing in New Jersey. If there was a hydrogen leak, as suspected, this discharge could have ignited the gas.

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Claim:

As a result of being wet, the coating on the Zepplin became hypercharged, then when the mooring ropes were dropped, the charges were polarized (frame was negatively charged, surface was positively charged). resulting in an incredibly powerful spark exploding near gas cell 4 igniting the nearby hydrogen cells.

Evidence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

https://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/zf/LZ129fire2005jan12.pdf

Explanation:

the wikipedia article was used to further our understanding of the structure of the Zeppelin, and gather eyewitness accounts of where the fire(s) started.

The Caltech article was used to form the basis of our claims, and provide specific evidence as to further our explanation.

The PDF was to debunk the theory proposed in the documentary.

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Claim: The Hindenburg Disaster was caused by a spark from static electricity that ignited released hydrogen from gas cells, as well as the highly flammable outer fabric.

Evidence: Velasco, E. (2021). History’s mysteries: Caltech professor helps Solve Hindenburg disaster. California Institute of Technology. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

Schwarcz, Dr. J. (2017, March 21). The Hindenburg crash. Office for Science and Society. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general/hindenburg-crash

Explanation: According to Caltech, excess static electricity from the stormy atmosphere that day caused sparks on the Hindenburg. This ignited hydrogen that was released from gas cells to lower the elevation of the airship. It also ignited the outer fabric of the airship because it was coated in a combination of substances that were highly flammable, such as iron oxide, aluminum powder, and acetate. According to McGill University, “Surviving samples of the Hindenburg's skin have been tested and have been found to be extremely flammable.” In conclusion, the sources point to both the Hindenburg’s hydrogen and outer cover as causes of the Hindenburg disaster.

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Our group agrees with your claim that the cause of the disaster was a spark from a reaction of positively and negatively charged parts of the that caused the highly flammable Hydrogen to light on fire. Your claim is very similar to ours and you also used the Cal Tech website as a reliable source. Well done!

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Wow! Very extensive explanation, really well done, we had many similar ideas with the same sources. I guess we can pretty safely say it had to do with the differing polarity in charges from the frame to the coating.

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Huh, your groups explanation differs pretty wildly from ours. We disagree about the flammability of the coating, our sources led us to the conclusion that the polarity of the charges between the frame and the coating resulted in a spark igniting the hydrogen, not that the coating itself was the cause of the burning, as according to the sources we looked at, the coating burning in that way would have taken twelve hours.

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Your explanation is very straight forward. Our group also agreed that static electricity in the atmosphere caused or at least influenced the fire that began. I'm further inclined to agree with your evidence because both of our groups used similar sources.

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Our group thinks that the idea that the covering was flammable is an interesting idea that we did not cover in our explanation. We did not read about what coated the skin, so it is interesting to see what you have to say about it. Your evidence also seems trustworthy.

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We like how your explanation is not too long but still had good detail. It also explains the electrical component to the Hindenburg disaster in simple and readable terms. We also thought that electricity was the root cause of the Hindenburg disaster, and that it ignited Hydrogen. However, would Hydrogen be the only thing that was ignited? According to the PBS Documentary, Hydrogen burns in a blue color (contrary to many eyewitnesses' testimonies) and would have not spread quickly had it been the only thing that had burned.

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I enjoyed reading this explanation because of the immediate claim on why another explanation of the Hindenburg didn’t work, being the fabric coating’s flammability not being strong enough to burn down the whole ship. This was strongly backed up by Caltech which you included in your analysis through the experiment led by Dr. Giapis. However, one change I would make next time would be to use a more reputable source than Wikipedia as that information isn’t always reliable. It is interesting because our claims do not corroborate regarding the fabric coating as according to McGill University, the fabric had highly flammable properties, and while it could not have burned the entire ship just by the fabric, it could have led to the ignition of the fire. However while our group slightly disagrees, the language was easy to read and the explanation of how positively and negatively charged electrons moved throughout the ship during the event was detailed. Nice work!

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We appreciate how your claim was clear and specific at the same time! Your claim was also a very good summary of your thorough explanation! It would be great if there was a little more explanation of how the Hydrogen played a role in the Hindenburg disaster. In your claim, you talked about a reaction with the Hydrogen but that wasn't elaborated on in the explanation. According to one of our sources, Caltech, they suggested that a Hydrogen leak had to have taken place to be ignited from the sparks. Including something like that would've helped improve the clarity of what the electrical spark actually did to cause the fire.