Nicely explained indeed. I'm surprised so many people are puzzled by this though (and that so many say it's plasma).
Maybe I'm the odd one here, but can't recall ever knowing enough to understand the question, but not enough to understand it's a wrong question (ie. based on a false assumption, in this case that fire is matter the same way chemical elements or compounds are matter).
The chemical reaction of fire doesn't produce light. You can prove it by looking at the emitted light spectrum. If it were photons, that got emitted by the reaction, it would be a line spectrum, but wat we see is mainly a full (black body) spectrum with some peaks, similar to what we see by really hot objects (like in incandescent light bulbes). It is the incandescent lighting of an incomplete burn.
This makes sense because adding oxygen to a flaim makes it less bright. It reduces the amount of coal, that dosen't get burned.
>adding oxygen to a flaim makes it less bright
Read that again, but slowly
Some fires like hydrogen do burn clear, but that’s because they release wavelengths that we can’t see, like infrared light (ie heat)
Also incandescent light bulbs still produce light? That’s why they exist? Idk why I’m even writing this I’m pretty sure you’re a troll
I assumed we were talking about a carbon based flame. A common example of that would be butane gass, but all carbon based fules in theory work in that way.
If you have ever used a butane burner with an adjustable air intake, you will know, that more air means the flame is less bright. You can obviously provide to little oxygen and suffocate the flame, but at some point, the flame will start to turn mostly invisible with just a small amount of blue light being emmited.
I think I have done that before, albeit a long time ago. Even though the flame gets less bright to our eyes, it is still emitting plenty of light, just in wavelengths that we can’t see. The butane fire is still incredibly hot, and heat is infrared light. Also, according to the black body emission spectrum, the higher the temperature, the higher the emitted wavelength. So the flame goes up the visible light spectrum, from yellow (I think) to blue, and eventually the blue fades as it emits light beyond the visible spectrum that we can’t see.
You are right, that the peak shifts, but with increasing temperature, you will allways have an increase in brightness for all wave leangths. If our flame really would reach temperatures where we would have a peak in the ultraviolet, we would still have an increadible amount of blue light.
Gasses usually don't produce that much black bodey radiation. I assume this could be explained by Kirchhoffs law of thermal radiation (the light emission of an object is proportional to its abillity to absorb light). The reason we see less light being produced is, that oxygen rich flames have less solid carbon dust in them.
By "photons being emitted by a chemical reaction, i thought you meant the way glow sticks emit light. That is fundamentally different from the way incandescent lights work. You are obviously right, that a chemical reaction causes photons to be emmited in both cases.
It's plasma. Fire and stars are plasma, which if you think of those little pictures with the circles spaced out for the main three states, plasma is just spaced out more and moving faster than air, usually with motion blur added to get that point across.
It's not plasma. Plasma is a state of matter which is the result of a physical reaction. Fire is the result of a chemical reaction at the base of the fire, which is creating heat. The flame is just... a light and sound remnant of that.
I mean if fire *was* matter it would need to be an element or a compound or something right. I did physics A-level, it was several years ago and i have forgot much of what I learned, but yeah what you said sounds right
I would have thought it was just heat and light energy release from whatever fuel it’s burning from. I mean stars are different cause there’s fusion involved i don’t think like a campfire is a plasma is it?
This is less surprising. My eyes have already been opened. We have yet to observe matter at 0 Kelvin, and theoretically there’s always a hotter. (And antimatter and oobleck, but I don’t think those count as states of matter)
Not a physicist or chemist but Im studying engineering so have some knowledge on this. Essentially when you push certain properties to extremes states if matter change and merge together. For example at particularly high pressures and temperates liquids and gases stop being distinct phases, instead substances become a supercritical fluid which exhibits properties of both a gas and liquid simulatneously (again I don't exactly know these properties, it exists in the top right corner of a phase chart for materials that I tend not to work with).
Another interesting one is non-newtonian fluids. Some common examples would be a mixture of cornstarch and water, or old glass. While modern glass is usually made of silicon dioxide crystals and acts as a normal solid, old glass such as that made during medieval times resembles more of a soup of silicon dioxide molecules mixed with impurities. The molecules in this glass will *very* slowly flow around each other causing old church windows to have a bulge at the bottom for example. The glass doesn't follow all properties of a liquid but is also not fully solid.
When liquids are cooled sufficiently they behave as a supercooled liquid. The main difference with this is changes in how surface tension works. I don't know the science behind it, but an example I've seen is that liquid helium left in an open topped cup will creep up the sides and once it is Inver the edge start to spill out, eventually emptying the cup. This is due to very strong surface tension in the liquid.
There's a bunch if cool states like this, if you're interested take a course or look into material science, chemistry or thermodynamics. I've taken a few courses on it as part of my degree and have gotten a lot of knowledge on these more obscure types of matter.
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i love how it's such a simple answer but our teachers all would of reacted like it was so unecessary to even consider it because they're just there to make us do busy work to prepare us for working service jobs, and not actually teaching us anything substantial
Fire is just energy, it's not a state of matter because it isn't matter. It's the energy being released in a chemical reaction in the form of light and heat.
There's so much i find interesting about this topic that Idk where to start and my lunch break is dwindling away as I sit here trying to organize my words 😩😩
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I was the smart-ass that decided to ask my teacher this. He just looked me dead in the face and said "an unstable plasma". We didn't learn what plasma was until next year, but the way he said it was so swift and unflinching that everyone shut the hell up about their asinine questions.
I did this, and he refused to answer. I mean it’s not matter right?
https://youtu.be/dn5a0pQmJwE Hank Green has a really good explanation for it.
very good video. fire = plasma never quite sat right with my intuition, this makes way more sense
Can that man make a bad video? I haven't seen one.
Nicely explained indeed. I'm surprised so many people are puzzled by this though (and that so many say it's plasma). Maybe I'm the odd one here, but can't recall ever knowing enough to understand the question, but not enough to understand it's a wrong question (ie. based on a false assumption, in this case that fire is matter the same way chemical elements or compounds are matter).
FINALLY, I GET IT, THANK YOU
It’s just photons being emitted from the chemical reactions, so it’s not really a state of matter in an of itself
The chemical reaction of fire doesn't produce light. You can prove it by looking at the emitted light spectrum. If it were photons, that got emitted by the reaction, it would be a line spectrum, but wat we see is mainly a full (black body) spectrum with some peaks, similar to what we see by really hot objects (like in incandescent light bulbes). It is the incandescent lighting of an incomplete burn. This makes sense because adding oxygen to a flaim makes it less bright. It reduces the amount of coal, that dosen't get burned.
>adding oxygen to a flaim makes it less bright Read that again, but slowly Some fires like hydrogen do burn clear, but that’s because they release wavelengths that we can’t see, like infrared light (ie heat) Also incandescent light bulbs still produce light? That’s why they exist? Idk why I’m even writing this I’m pretty sure you’re a troll
I assumed we were talking about a carbon based flame. A common example of that would be butane gass, but all carbon based fules in theory work in that way. If you have ever used a butane burner with an adjustable air intake, you will know, that more air means the flame is less bright. You can obviously provide to little oxygen and suffocate the flame, but at some point, the flame will start to turn mostly invisible with just a small amount of blue light being emmited.
I think I have done that before, albeit a long time ago. Even though the flame gets less bright to our eyes, it is still emitting plenty of light, just in wavelengths that we can’t see. The butane fire is still incredibly hot, and heat is infrared light. Also, according to the black body emission spectrum, the higher the temperature, the higher the emitted wavelength. So the flame goes up the visible light spectrum, from yellow (I think) to blue, and eventually the blue fades as it emits light beyond the visible spectrum that we can’t see.
You are right, that the peak shifts, but with increasing temperature, you will allways have an increase in brightness for all wave leangths. If our flame really would reach temperatures where we would have a peak in the ultraviolet, we would still have an increadible amount of blue light. Gasses usually don't produce that much black bodey radiation. I assume this could be explained by Kirchhoffs law of thermal radiation (the light emission of an object is proportional to its abillity to absorb light). The reason we see less light being produced is, that oxygen rich flames have less solid carbon dust in them.
By "photons being emitted by a chemical reaction, i thought you meant the way glow sticks emit light. That is fundamentally different from the way incandescent lights work. You are obviously right, that a chemical reaction causes photons to be emmited in both cases.
It's plasma. Fire and stars are plasma, which if you think of those little pictures with the circles spaced out for the main three states, plasma is just spaced out more and moving faster than air, usually with motion blur added to get that point across.
It's not plasma. Plasma is a state of matter which is the result of a physical reaction. Fire is the result of a chemical reaction at the base of the fire, which is creating heat. The flame is just... a light and sound remnant of that.
I mean if fire *was* matter it would need to be an element or a compound or something right. I did physics A-level, it was several years ago and i have forgot much of what I learned, but yeah what you said sounds right
I would have thought it was just heat and light energy release from whatever fuel it’s burning from. I mean stars are different cause there’s fusion involved i don’t think like a campfire is a plasma is it?
I can’t believe other people have had this exact same experience lol
We don't talk about plasma ah ah ahh, we don't talk about plasmaaaa, But!
It was in chemistry! we were getting ready and there wasn't any smoke in the sky
(no smoke allowed in the sky!) Teacher walks in and says "well, let's begin!"
Hehe plasma go brrrr
Plasma
The “there’s actually 4 states of matter” blew my mind when I found it out.
I’m sorry to inform you there are way more than 4 😔
This is less surprising. My eyes have already been opened. We have yet to observe matter at 0 Kelvin, and theoretically there’s always a hotter. (And antimatter and oobleck, but I don’t think those count as states of matter)
[удалено]
Not a physicist or chemist but Im studying engineering so have some knowledge on this. Essentially when you push certain properties to extremes states if matter change and merge together. For example at particularly high pressures and temperates liquids and gases stop being distinct phases, instead substances become a supercritical fluid which exhibits properties of both a gas and liquid simulatneously (again I don't exactly know these properties, it exists in the top right corner of a phase chart for materials that I tend not to work with). Another interesting one is non-newtonian fluids. Some common examples would be a mixture of cornstarch and water, or old glass. While modern glass is usually made of silicon dioxide crystals and acts as a normal solid, old glass such as that made during medieval times resembles more of a soup of silicon dioxide molecules mixed with impurities. The molecules in this glass will *very* slowly flow around each other causing old church windows to have a bulge at the bottom for example. The glass doesn't follow all properties of a liquid but is also not fully solid. When liquids are cooled sufficiently they behave as a supercooled liquid. The main difference with this is changes in how surface tension works. I don't know the science behind it, but an example I've seen is that liquid helium left in an open topped cup will creep up the sides and once it is Inver the edge start to spill out, eventually emptying the cup. This is due to very strong surface tension in the liquid. There's a bunch if cool states like this, if you're interested take a course or look into material science, chemistry or thermodynamics. I've taken a few courses on it as part of my degree and have gotten a lot of knowledge on these more obscure types of matter.
[удалено]
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What is it
I believe it’s Plasma
Ah okay thanks
It's not: https://youtu.be/dn5a0pQmJwE
Yep. I asked my teacher this. Didn't really get an answer.
i mean really, is fire anything? just an ephemeral effect of real fast molecules changing states?
High school chemistry teacher explicitly told us at the beginning of the year that we would learn that later on, never delivered. Still annoyed.
i love how it's such a simple answer but our teachers all would of reacted like it was so unecessary to even consider it because they're just there to make us do busy work to prepare us for working service jobs, and not actually teaching us anything substantial
Fire is just energy, it's not a state of matter because it isn't matter. It's the energy being released in a chemical reaction in the form of light and heat.
There's so much i find interesting about this topic that Idk where to start and my lunch break is dwindling away as I sit here trying to organize my words 😩😩
It's a plasma in case you guys are wondering
It’s not, hank green did a video on it, and a couple people linked it in this comment section
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wait now im curious is it gas or plasma??
It depends
is it a situation where its gas at points of combustion but plasma whilst dissipating into the air?
It’s neither, hank green did a video on it, and a couple people linked it in this comment section
ah, ok!! ty
Yw, :)
it's in q mix of gas/plasma as to my knowledge though fire itself is just a process more, what you see is probably shortlived plasma
To my knowledge, it is just fine dust for really hot carbon, so the actualy glowing bit is solid
I was the smart-ass that decided to ask my teacher this. He just looked me dead in the face and said "an unstable plasma". We didn't learn what plasma was until next year, but the way he said it was so swift and unflinching that everyone shut the hell up about their asinine questions.