What exactly is an implosion?

[Quantam]

I understand everything about explosions, but what about implosions? Do they occur in nature? What do they look like? How are they caused? :?: :?: :?:

 

[Saiph]

an implosion is an inward traveling shockwave...and don't really occur often in nature. One 'natural' place to see it is for a hollow object deep underwater finally succumbing to the pressure, and crunching.

Otherwise we make them for various reasons, and it's merely a lot of shaped explosive charges, all aimed at the same point. You get a big shrinking shockwave, meets in the middle, then explodes outwards (rebound)

 

[Fallingstar1971]

If a star somewhere in the Universe truly does supernova once per second then perhaps implosions are more common in nature than previously thought.

Of course, thats the ONLY example I can give. Outside of that, yes, pretty rare indeed (at least observable implosions)

Star

 

[Shpaget]

Word "implosion" is also used to describe the demolition of a building when explosives are arranged and detonated in such a way that leads to the building collapsing in on itself minimizing the damage to surrounding area and infrastructure.

 

[yevaud]

Here's a tanker car imploding due to severe pressure differential.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_hci9vrvfw[/youtube]

 

[rfoshaug]

If something occurs only once per second in the universe, "common" is not the word that comes to mind...

If a star somewhere in the Universe truly does supernova once per second then perhaps implosions are more common in nature than previously thought.

Of course, thats the ONLY example I can give. Outside of that, yes, pretty rare indeed (at least observable implosions)

Star