perfidy

This story from the UK is interesting - some physicists from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth have figured out how much damage Guy Fawkes' barrels of gunpowder would have caused had his dastardly plot not been foiled. Apparently, he would have "devastated much of London as well as blowing the palace of Westminster sky-high."

"Using explosion physics the team deduced that streets up to one-third of a mile from the centre of the palace of Westminster would have suffered severe structural damage and windows would have shattered within a radius of two-thirds of a mile from the centre of the blast."

Dr Geraint Thomas, head of the Centre for Explosion Studies, (now there's a cool job title) said that the 2,500kg of gunpowder Guy Fawkes was found with, would be equivalent to the same amount of TNT due to the fact that explosives expert Fawkes had carefully packed the gunpowder tightly in barrels.

Here's a summary of the plot for those in need of one.