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Speaker 1: Linda dot com slash brain Stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff
Speaker 1: from how Stuff works dot com where smart Happens. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, how does the lighter
Speaker 1: in a barbecue grill work? In a barbecue grill, you
Speaker 1: normally have a push button lighter. You push the button,
Speaker 1: it makes a clunking sound and a spark appears inside
Speaker 1: the gas grill. How does that work? A barbecue lighter
Speaker 1: uses something called piezo electricity to generate a nice spark
Speaker 1: that lights the grill. Piezo in Greek means pressure, and
Speaker 1: you find piezzo electric materials in a number of different places.
Speaker 1: For example, all of these products depend on the piezo
Speaker 1: electric effect. The push button lighter and a barbecue grill,
Speaker 1: the pushbutton lighter on a cigarette lighter, piezo electric beepers
Speaker 1: which are common in digital watches and just about anything
Speaker 1: electronic that goes deep. Piezo electric tweeters and stereo speakers,
Speaker 1: the sound generating a raise for sonar, fish finders and
Speaker 1: ultrasound devices. Crystal microphones, phonograph needles, and the quartz crystals
Speaker 1: used in most digital clocks, watches and timers as the
Speaker 1: time base. Certain crystaline materials, like courts, rochelle salts, and
Speaker 1: certain ceramics have piezo electric properties. When you apply pressure
Speaker 1: to them, you get a charge separation within the crystal
Speaker 1: and a voltage across the crystal that is sometimes extremely high.
Speaker 1: For example, in a barbecue lighter, the popping noise you
Speaker 1: hear is a little spring loaded hammer hitting at crystal
Speaker 1: and generating thousands of volts across the two faces of
Speaker 1: that crystal. A voltage this high is identical to the
Speaker 1: voltage that drives a spark plug in a gasoline engine.
Speaker 1: The crystals voltage can generate a nice spark that lights
Speaker 1: the gas in the grill. In a crystal microphone, air
Speaker 1: pressure deforms the crystal enough to cause very small voltage
Speaker 1: changes in the crystal. These voltage changes are amplified and
Speaker 1: used to record or transmit sounds. Piece of electric materials
Speaker 1: also work the other way. If you apply a voltage
Speaker 1: across the crystal, the crystal will change shape. The change
Speaker 1: in shape is very slight in most cases, but it's
Speaker 1: enough to drive small speakers. Do you have any ideas
Speaker 1: or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me
Speaker 1: an email at podcast at house stuff works dot com.
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