Whats the difference between exploding and imploding?

Question

Are they not just the same thing?

Answer 1

Think of a building. If there is a bomb inside of a building and it goes off, the building would explode out into the street (bricks, windows, furniture, people).

If a building implodes, this is done during demolition of a building by a special crew to clear a site for new construction. There are explosives set inside the building to cause the floors to collapse and the four walls to cave INTO each other while the building goes down, not over on their sides and out all over the place.

Another example: A chocolate mousse might "explode" all over your microwave if you heated it too long in there; or it might "implode" if you have it in a regular oven and open the door while it is baking (the top caves in ).

A submarine's shell would implode if it went down too far into the ocean.

A pressurized aircraft will explode if a window or door blows out in flight (fortunately they are made like a bottle plug so this doesn't happen).

Answer 2

Explosions happen when matter suddenly moves away from the centre or source. This could be due to ignition of very volatile substances such as a petroleum and air mixture inside a cylinder engine, or chemicals being mixed which react quickly and blow outwards. Implosion occurs where matter collapses inwards to fill a vacated space. The two can appear to be the same. The best example of this that I saw was when working on a tv show called The Young Ones starring Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson Nigel Planer and others a few years ago. It was about a group of students who lived together in a very grotty house. Special Effects dept were called on to reproduce all kinds of comic situations. One of these was where the oven "blew up" scattering debris everywhere. In fact this was done using a large cylinder rather like a gas cylinder and a vacuum pump to remove all the air and create a lower than atmospheric pressure inside it. The cylinder was then connected via a tube to a specially built "oven" filled with bits of expanded polystyrene "masonry". On cue the vacuum cyllinder valve was thrown open causing the contents of the "oven" to be sucked out rapidly. It was very effective and convincing as an explosion, but in fact it was an implosion that did the trick.
Another example of implosion would be if you were to puncture a television picture tube. These have a vacuum inside them. The whole envelope would implode if broken. This is dangerous as the electron "gun" at the narrow end would travel rapidly forwards and hit you in the face if you were in the wrong position. One not to be tried at home, children.

Answer 3

A submarine that goes too deep would IMPLODE, a balloon that goes too high would EXPLODE. It's just a matter of whether the destructive force is acting inwards or outwards.

Answer 4

No they are not the same thing. Exploding is when something shatters into many parts that are scattered over a large area as when gas explodes for example.
Imploding is when something caves in on itself as can happen when a vacuum is created within a container it will collapse inward.

Answer 5

absolutely NOT the same thing. They are opposites.

Expode means to burst outward (example, a firecracker going off where the gunpowder explodes and fragments the casing).

Implode means to collaps inward, like when you crush an empty soda can.

Answer 6

Exploding is when the pressure forces the material away from the center.
Example: a firecracker going off

Imploding is when the material is forced or pulled towards the center.
Example: when a light bulb breaks or a submarine depressurizes.

They are the reverse of each other in physics.

Answer 7

No, explosion is when the force pushes outwards (like we see in grenades and things) an implosion is where the force pushes inwards on itself... (like a sun which has gone nova... and then implodes on itself causing a black hole)

A really rough example of an implosion is when they blow a multistory building up... they set the charges so the building implodes (in other words so when they blow it up , bricks dont go flying outwards)

Answer 8

exploding goes out, imploding goes in.

If you go into space, your lungs "explode" (not literally). If you go 2000 ft below the water, your lungs implode.

A star swells up to a red giant, then implodes, then explodes into a nova.

Answer 9

imploding causes the barrier to cave in, exploding causes the barrier to blow out and apart

Answer 10

Exploding - all the bits fly outwards.
Imploding - all the bits fly inwards.

ex-1
a prefix meaning “out of,” “from,”