As a former chemist, I can tell you that this is one of nature’s most wonderful substances in more ways than one. It is an alkyne which means that it has two carbon atoms linked by a triple bond and that makes it very reactive.
When I was a kid in the 50’s, it was easy to make due to availability of calcium carbide from the local cycle shop. Add water to calcium carbide and off comes acetylene in copious quantities. The earliest vehicle headlamps used this reaction whereby water was slowly dripped on the carbide and the acetylene ignited to provide light.
Another property of acetylene is that it detonates on shock. So unlike other gases it is not stored in compressed form in cylinders; it is dissolved in kerosene so that it won’t go off on shock. We exploited this effect. You put a few lumps of calcium carbide in a screw top bottle and add water. Screw on the cap and wait. No science here, we just waited until we thought the pressure had built up. Then we lobbed them against hard surfaces and just ducked. Enormous bang, flash of light and smithereens of glass everywhere.
We also transformed the lumps of calcium carbide into a form of currency. Younger kids were fascinated by our experiments. So we got them to go to the shops for us and in return, they got one crystal. Mercifully no one ever got hurt.
Not so the seagulls. Many years later, I was recounting all this to a much older colleague at work. He was in the army in WWII and in the interval between Dunkirk and D-Day, he was stationed at the seaside. One of their amusements was to put a lump of carbide inside a lump of bread and toss it to the seagulls. Soon after, the seagulls exploded. Wicked, I know.
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