WEBVTT - How Fire Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:12.720 works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.560 Josh Clark. With me is always as Charles w chuckle 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:20.720 Bryant said, and uh, this is stuffy snow, Josh. We 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.080 let me stand next to your fire. Sure, okay, come 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.040 over here right now? Okay, sorry, Well it's nice and 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.599 warm over here, isn't it. I'm feverish and it's smoky 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.600 and there. I feel like there's chemical reactions taking place 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.479 before my very eyes. There are. That's why there's fire. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:46.040 If fire is nothing if not a chemical reaction. Yeah, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:52.320 I got so. Okay. Have you heard of the Winecoff Hotel? Yeah, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.960 but born and raised here, Yeah? Uh the Ellis Hotel? 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.120 Was that the hotel fire? Yeah? Yeah, you know that. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.040 It's now the l Hotel. It's at the corner of 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.880 Peach Tree and Ellis, nice refurbished hotel. Back in nine 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:07.360 it was called the wine Cough Hotel and it was 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.479 the site of the most disastrous casualty wise hotel fire 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:17.520 in US history. In December d nineteen people died right 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.840 right here in a very sty four. Just under forty 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.839 four years later, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The MGM Grand 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.120 had a hotel fire. People died. Do you remember the 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.039 MGM fire GM Grand fire? It was a big deal. 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.720 Not at all you you. I'm surprised because I kind 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.840 of remember, like seeing footage of that. When was this? 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.080 Oh no, I don't remember. So both of these fires 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.600 and all the loss of life associated with them were 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.480 the direct result of hubris towards fire. The wine cough 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.000 their fire exits one stairwell for the whole building. I 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.400 think it was like nineteen stories or something like that. Um, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.080 the MGM Grand, they they didn't put up like sixty 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.040 dollars for a fire detection system in this one part 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.799 of the hotel that would have saved everyone's lives. A 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.840 part Hubrist, part financial shenanigans. Right, But isn't that kind 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.080 of based on Hubrists. My point is is that if 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.880 there's one thing that we shouldn't have, hubris towards its 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.080 fire agreed. We do. You think we might control fire 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:28.120 thanks to Prometheus being given it by the gods, yea, 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.800 But fire controls us when it really comes down to it. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.919 That's right. You gotta face off a tete a tete 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.480 with fire. You're gonna lose buddy because you're combustible. Yeah. 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.920 So also we should say here that this fire as 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.200 um it should be a prequel to the how wildfires 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:49.320 work and how um spontaneous human combustion works. Those two 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.480 episodes are great. I agreed, this will seal up our 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.960 triumvirate and now we're gonna explain how fire works. Yeah. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:57.799 I do have a couple of quick stats. We're talking about. 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.440 The deadly nature of fire does kill more people than 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.680 any other force of nature. I couldn't find that any 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.800 source for that, but I saw I was searching for it, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.639 and it brought up like a handful of plagiarized versions 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.280 of this article on the internet. Yeah. Those are always fun, 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.239 especially when it's your own. This one is not mine. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.919 This is a Bill Harritt, Tom Harris, Tom Harris. Um. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:21.800 But I do have some stats in the US, at 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.119 least in two thousand ten for residential building fires, over 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.520 people died that year. And that's sort of in the 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:35.600 wheelhouse that fluctuates between about thirty two hundred a year 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.920 from building fires. Uh, cooking is far and away the 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.600 leading cause of the building fire and arsonist number two huh, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.480 which I would have thought like falling asleep with a 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.960 cigarette would would be above arson um and then total 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.360 in two thousand nine, and I guess this counts like 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.920 any kind of fire in the US, they were close 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:01.640 to thirty deaths that year, so that you know, that's 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.200 a lot. Yeah, I mean that's more than um, I'm 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.040 sure killed by volcanoes in the US every year. I think, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.120 you know, that's just one or two people falling into 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.200 kill aweya from getting too close. Have you seen that 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.840 footage of that scientists going, Um, he's collecting some sort 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.680 of I guess magma from an active volcano in Hawaii, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.560 and um, it was really nerve racking because he goes up, 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.160 takes a sample. He's climbing up the rim and then 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.040 climbs back down and right when he steps away from it, 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.960 the magma comes up over the rim exactly where he'd 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.479 just been climbing like five minutes before, and so it 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.880 would have like just just completely disintegrated him. I imagined, 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.479 what did he say? I don't know, like, holy crap, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.120 did that Well? The guy who was filming it was 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.920 like narrating like this is so stupid. Yeah, it's very cool. 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:54.720 I don't know what you'd search, but it's up there 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.080 on the internet somewhere search WU and that should do it, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.359 so Chuck. The Greeks thought that fire was one of 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:07.560 the four elements earth wire, water, wind and fire. Earth 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:14.480 wind and fire and water and nash and young silly Greeks. Uh. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.599 The reason why that doesn't really hold up is because um, earth, fire, air, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.839 these are elements. They're matter, Yeah, they're made up of atoms. 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:31.880 Fire is the physical manifestation of matter changing form. It's 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.520 pretty cool, like when you think of it that way. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.920 And we're going to describe how this happens, all right, 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.560 I can tackle some of this. Chemistry is not my 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.440 forte but it is a chemical reaction at its core 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:50.320 between oxygen and um fuel, which I mean, we'll probably 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.520 let's talk about like a camp fire. Let's go with wood. 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.520 Wood fire is probably easiest way to describe it. But 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.520 the wood is the fuel. The wood is the fuel. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.640 Oxygen's found in the air, that's right. But for these 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.360 things to uh make fire, you gotta have something called combustion, yeah, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.279 and which means you're gonna have to have some sort 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.720 of a spark um. Well, actually not always, because as 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.080 we find out, some things can combust without a spark. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:16.800 I think if they get hot enough, Like the heat 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.480 is just so intense that it doesn't need any spark, right, 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.880 But for wood, you have to get it up to um. 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.839 Uh it's ignition temperature, which is about three hundred degrees fahrenheit, 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.760 which is where you're gonna start seeing some smoke because 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.480 that is cellulose burning away. Uh. And it just occurred 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.880 to me reading this today, like where there's smoke, there's fire. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.599 Not true, Yeah, because things can smoke without there being 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.160 a fire. Yeah, actually a byproduct of fire. You know, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.840 um doesn't smoke. So I guess in order to if 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.280 you're one of the people that now says bottom of 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.720 the totem pole or instead of top of the totem pole, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.240 then we can for they reinforce this obnoxious quality by 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.040 encouraging you to say, where there's smoke, there is ignition 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.400 temperature of a combustible fuel, there's volatile gases. It's nice 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.800 way to go chucked, all right? Thanks? So yeah, heat 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:18.000 is heat decomposes fuel where will to say wood, And 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.680 in the case of wood specifically, it decomposes the um 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.800 volatile gases contained in the solid matter, Right, so these 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.520 volatile gases start to heat up themselves, and while they're 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:32.640 doing that, the cellulose, the solid stuff, is decomposing and 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.840 turning into what's called char. Yeah, I got a little 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.040 thing on cell cellulotional quest and then you can just 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.160 take it home. No man, because that's where I get confused. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:47.440 I'm confused to cellulose about of wood is cellulose, and 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:49.560 that's what like, that's where you make paper, that's what 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.560 you make paper from. That's what you make cellulosic ethanol from, too, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:57.320 and it's what you make cellophane out of. Cellophane is 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:03.200 regenerated cellulose. So it's it's like it looks like plastic, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.360 but it's not. I had no idea. It is a 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.960 man made as I'm sorry, it's a natural polymer. Plastic 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:13.480 is manmade obviously, So cellophane is nothing more than regenerated 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.360 paper in a way. Wow, like they had some other 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.480 stuff to it. But that's why it's biodegradable. And I 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.400 always wonder why, like supposedly cellophane is biodegradable. It's like 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.280 that's impossible. It's plastic, but it's not plastic. There's this 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.640 old telephone and from like the fifties maybe, and it's 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.280 like good things coming twos and it's like this, this 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.560 pair of twins wrapped in cellophane and they're just like 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.440 kind of looking around. But yeah, you can imagine they 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.280 only have them in there for a few seconds before 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.480 they snout the picture. I did not know that about cellophane. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.199 Back to the podcast right there, and I don't know 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.480 about that. Hats off to you, all right back to you. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:54.560 I know what the fact of the podcast is. You're 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.080 gonna save it for when it comes. We can't save it, okay, okay. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:02.240 So um, you've got the cellulose, the solid matter of 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.960 wood separating now from the volatile um gases that are 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.920 starting to lift off. That's smoke, right, Okay, the wood, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.040 the solid matter is starting to turn into char um. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.040 And that is basically if you if you burn would 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.160 if you heat it up and you separate the gases, 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:26.480 which are the smoke, what remains is carbon and what 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.680 what charcoal is is charred wood that's had the volatile 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.240 gases burned out of it, which is why when you 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.400 have a charcoal fire, you don't have smoke, yeah, or 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.520 not much at least, Yeah, because the gases have already 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.319 been burned off. Yeah, and charcoal too. That got that 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.680 kind of got me on charcoal filtering because these charcoal 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.480 is a filter, and I think that is a scrubber 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.679 two on smoke stacks. And uh, if you're like I 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:55.720 did some of those survival articles at one point, and 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.160 one of the things you can do to purify water 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.000 is take your char from your fire, put it in 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.720 like you know, cool it down obviously, and then put 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.800 it in, then put it in like a hanky, and 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.840 then running creek water through that to collect it underneath. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.040 That's awesome. And uh, and there's like real charcoal filters too. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.840 But apparently charcoal has a quality because once it's pure 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.600 carbon like that, it um has a knack for filtering 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.240 out things like impurities like chlorine and letting other stuff 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.920 get through. So that's why it's used as a filter. Yeah, 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.760 because essentially what you're making is a carbon filter. Yeah, 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.760 charcoal is like basically pure carbon with all the impurities 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.800 burned off. Yeah, those impurities burned off as smoke. They're 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.400 volatile gases, So that's pretty neat. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.600 Little survival tip man, you're killing it today. Well now 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.400 that this is when I go to sleep though. Okay, So, um, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.000 the third component of burned wood. You've got the volatile 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:59.120 gases smoke, you have the char, the charcoal which is carbon, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.680 and then you have ash, which is unburnable minerals like um, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.719 calcium or phosphorus. I believe. Yeah. And if you like 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.640 you ever cook with briquettes, charcoal briquettes, you're gonna get 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.280 a lot more ash with that because it has a 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.280 lot of more like byproducts in it. Then if you 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.680 use like real wood charcoal, right, but they're not gonna smoke, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.920 They're just not gonna burn. You're just gonna be left over, 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:19.640 like you can't get rid of it. You can pounded 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.280 into oblivion, but it's still there. Yeah. But if you 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.040 use the real wood coal then char, then you'll notice 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.920 you don't get a lot of that stuff. Oh is 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.000 that right? Yeah? Okay, but the brackettes aren't as nasty 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.199 synthetic briquettes. No, they're made from char and like binding 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.959 agents and stuff like that. And saw that. No. I 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.560 actually used to hear that like, oh, you can't cook 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.120 with briquettes are so nasty, But they're really I look 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.920 into it. It's not super nasty. I mean you probably 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.400 should cook somewhere in between nasty and super nasty. Yeah, 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.640 well it's not It's not as bad as I thought. 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:54.640 I thought it was like a bunch of chemical agents 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.079 and glue and cement. And that's not the case I got. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.120 It's not the hot dogs of King materials. That's the 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:06.480 corn dog. Okay, um, okay, So we've got the components, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:12.120 right um. As these volatile um gases continue to heat 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:17.400 up um to about five degrees fahrenheit two d six 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:23.800 degrees celsius, they the molecules break apart, and when they 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:30.280 break apart, they go to combine with oxygen oxidation. Right um. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.080 And the same thing happens with the carbon in the wood, 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.520 but this takes place in place much more slowly. But 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.480 one of the the stars of this chemical reaction, this 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.600 change of breaking down to these molecules and then the 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.559 recombining into other things like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide. Water. 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.960 Isn't that weird that fire produces water? Um, That's why 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.360 sometimes you have steam coming from a fire. Right um. 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.200 The star of all this chemical reactions, all these chemical reactions, 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.680 is heat is produced. He the energy is released, which 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.560 allows us to cook and be comfortable and feel secure 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.480 and all the good stuff that comes with fire. And 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.880 because of the heat that's released as these things are 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:15.200 heated up, um, it is sustainable. That means the fire 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.400 is sustainable so long as there's fuel and there's oxygen present. Yeah. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.640 That was the kind of creepy part. And not creepy, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.160 but it's self perpetuating, like that flame is gonna heat 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.480 up any fuel near it to the point where it 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:32.640 can release those gases to recombine with oxygen. It's pretty 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.800 elegant and think about it. Yeah, another big star of 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.680 fire besides heat is light and part of that is 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.880 from the same um the carbon atoms right, yeah, that 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.040 are combining, that are being torn apart, the molecules that 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.520 UM form up the char breaking down in their constituent 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:59.439 carbon atoms when they combine with oxygen, right recombine, Yeah, 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.160 I think that would make carbon monoxide. But as they 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:08.040 change UM, they they're electrons will go up, an energy 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.000 level will change orbit and when they come back down 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.199 they admit they release some of that energy that they 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.359 have and they release it in the form of photons. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:23.360 They produce light UM and yeah, it's it's heat producing light. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.240 Like we talked about bioluminescence, where basically you heat up 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.200 a filament in a light bulb and it glows. That's 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.240 the same thing with the fires, the same based on 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.240 the same principle, which is incandescence. Pretty awesome, and depending 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.600 on the temperature, Uh, different colored light is going to 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.480 be produced. Yeah, Like, uh, you remember the buns and 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.720 burners back in chemistry class and how the buns and 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.760 burners have little slots on the side that you can 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.280 vary the amount of like oxygen getting in there. You know, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.800 there's the little flickering orange flame of a buns and burner. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.520 Then if you let a lot more oxygen in, it's 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.000 going to be more it's gonna be more hot. And 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.240 that's why that's when it's gonna be that blue jet 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.560 the same as when you see like a jet plane, 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.680 like right next to where the flame comes out, it's 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.600 gonna be like really blue and then it gets more 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.680 orange and yellow, you know, like the batmobile. You know 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.480 what I'm saying, I know exactly the original batmobile. No. Um, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.160 we've seen a bunch of batmobiles recently. There's a documentary 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.200 about the batmobile. That's what all those were there for 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.040 a comic con. Okay, we had and I had her 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.720 picture taken with it with which one the new one, 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:37.000 the tumbler, that's what they called the new one, is it? Yeah? 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.760 The chrystalin one is called the tongue. The chrystal was Yea, 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.040 it's awesome, it's pretty cool. Uh so yeah. The the 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.960 reason why the blue one happens to be a different 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.120 color and hotter is because there's more energy being released, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.840 that's right. Uh The lower energy and slightly less hot 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.600 part of the flame that glows orange yellow is at 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.440 the top. And the reason of flame is pointed. This 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.520 is this is pretty awesome, not the fact of the podcast. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.120 The space part is Okay, I think, all right, go ahead. Then, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.120 So a flame is pointed and it burns upward because 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.480 the gases that are burning what you're burning right there 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.480 are volatile gases. They're being burned off right. Um. As 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.640 they as they burn, they're they're hotter, but they're also 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:28.120 less dance and they're moving upward towards the less dense 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:32.160 air above it, which causes it to be pointed. But 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.240 if you were to light you take it for granted, 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.520 but it's kind of cool to know how that works. Yeah, 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.680 that's why it always burns upward. It tends to burn upward. No, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.720 it always does, always burns upward. And that's also why 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.320 it's pointed too, because the air around it is dense 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.600 and it's pushing it in right. Pretty awesome, But if 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.600 you were to light a fire in zero gravity, it 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.840 would burn as a sphere. I want to see this. 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.520 I mean, can it be done if we go into 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.600 zero Yeah? But I mean they have zero gravity environments, 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.240 is do they? At Tech? Surely someone has started a 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.280 fire in one of those just to see this. I 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.159 think it's a really bad thing if a fire starts 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.639 in the zero gravity environment, I guess. So that's I 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:16.719 just gotta think that someone's tried this. I'm sure. I'm 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.520 sure there's a video of it on YouTube. Now there's 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.560 probably a good reason why. And someone's gonna write and 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.080 some hute dummies. Don't you understand that when you start 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.680 a fire in zero gravity that we all die? That's right? Okay? 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.280 So steam, let's talk about steam, because because we talked 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.120 about the recombination of atoms, when these gases are released, 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.760 the same thing happens when you boil water. You know, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.920 you get this this gas mixing with oxygen the air, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.800 but it's not going to combust, thank thankfully, or cooking 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.480 would be much more dangerous. Um. It's because some of 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.800 these atoms aren't as attracted to each other. In the 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.280 case of water, for sure, they're tepid towards one another. Yeah. 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.960 If you're talking fire, though, they have carbon and hydrogen 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.520 which are really attractive to oxygen, and so they like 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.960 to get together and uh, combine, recombine more easily. Right, 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.080 pretty simple. Uh. And then we've been talking mostly about 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.200 wood as a fuel, but tons of things are fuel. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.400 Gasoline is a good fuel. Gasoline doesn't produce char. Basically, 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:22.879 heat vaporizes gasoline into nothing but volatile gases which burn. Yeah, 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.080 that's so there you go. And I always heard too 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.560 that gasoline ignites like the vapor ignites, not the liquid. 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.800 Is that true. Yeah, it's not the it's not the liquid, 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.280 it's the gas. But heat causes all that liquid to 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:41.840 turn into the gas, which. Um, So different fuels are 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:46.640 going to catch at different temperatures, and no matter what 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:52.120 the fuel, it'll have a piloted ignition temperature and an 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.600 unpiloted ignition temperature. Basically, the piloted ignition temperature is that 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:02.960 um that point that temperature where the volatile gases are 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.720 being released and they're heated up to the point where 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.320 if you introduce a spark it would blow up. That's right. 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.359 One of the defining characteristics of a volatile gas is 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:19.720 that UM. It basically disperses at room temperature. I believe UM, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:24.640 so at some point, introducing a spark is gonna set 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.359 that off at some temperature, which I guess means that 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.639 like if you have gasoline cooled to enough of a temperature, 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.160 just lighting a match next to it won't set off 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.960 the gas. I don't know if this is a question 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.680 we should be raising a general audience. Don't try this. 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.520 I'm curious, so we'll have to check that out. But 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.879 the unpiloted ignition temperature is basically when something gets hit 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.680 by lightning and the heat is so intense that there's 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.040 no need for a spark. It just heats it up 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.000 the point where now it's on fire, where it come bust. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.240 Pretty cool, And I try to get to the origin 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.960 of pilot like a pilot light, which is the same 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.199 thing I guess I couldn't find it. I don't know 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.680 where that came from, because, yeah, I think about it, 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.440 You've got the gas burning and that it's glowing, yeah, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.520 and then you just hit the spark and then bam, 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.040 you just ignited the gas. So it's at the pilot 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.720 the piloted ignition temperature in your hot water heater. But 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:18.800 I'm sure someone knows the answer that, so if you 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.400 do send it in. We're raising a lot of questions 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.320 in this one and giving some answers. Um the shape, 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.639 and by shape usually they mean like surface area of 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:35.760 a of a fuel effects how efficiently it burns and 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.199 how easily it burns too. Yeah, I mean this is 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.160 pretty basic. Like if you have a big thick log 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.560 obviously you're gonna have way less surface area exposed and 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.280 combustible then if you had like a toothpick. Yeah, and 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.720 they can absorb a lot more heat too, big thick 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.399 log um. But yeah, if you have a bunch of 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.720 little pieces of wood, it's gonna burn more quickly catch 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.600 more easily because there's more exposed surface surface temperature, and 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.720 more of that fuels is exposed to the heat than 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.720 a big Like you said, a big log or something. Yeah, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.440 and that's why when you're starting. You know, if you 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:09.720 ever watched a bear grills do this thing or or 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.720 less stroud, they try to get the little like tiny 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.400 little shavings from the inside of h like you peel 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.240 away the bark on a tree and then get the 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.800 shavings off of the tree itself. And that's the stuff 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.600 that's gonna like really combust easily through friction with like Uh, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:27.800 you know, there's different ways of doing the little I've 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.000 never been I've never done that. Have you? Have you 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.879 started a fire using like friction? Have you? Really? That's impressive. 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.640 I do that stuff when I go camping now for fun, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.840 like in front of the real fire. You know that 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.000 we started with our big lighters and I'm sitting there 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.080 with my beer in my Southern comfort and my comfy 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.199 chair and the steak is on the grill. I'll do 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.840 some little survival stuff just kind of for fun, you know, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.200 until I get tired of it and give up. But yeah, 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.879 it's fun. Um, Well, hats off to you for no 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.119 how to do that? Well, it's pretty easy. I mean 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.800 there's different ways. There's the plow method or the little bow, uh, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.119 where you make the little string to bow. Yeah, and 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.200 do that little number. Yeah, I've seen that one. There's 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:15.000 the castaway one. Yeah, that's the plow method. Oh that's plow. Yeah, 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.800 that makes sense to be called that. Do you got 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.280 anything else? I don't think so, do you think Do 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.880 you feel like we explain this correctly? And well? Yeah, 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:27.680 I mean it's it's pretty basic chemistry. We're basically heat 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.840 breaks down a fuel so that it can combine with 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:36.280 oxygen and ignite. Yeah, and then burned. That's right. And 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.760 it's self sustaining so long as there's fuel and oxygen. 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:40.520 And then all you need is a bear skin rug 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.880 and some cinemax and you're all set for Friday night. Awesome. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:47.520 If you want to know more about fire, you can 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:49.879 type fire into the search bar at how stuff works 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.439 dot com and that will bring up this article and 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:56.120 plenty of other stuff too. Um, maybe even some survival 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:59.960 stuff by one Charles W. Bryant. Uh, And I said 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:06.200 search bar. So it's time for a listener mail, Chuck. Yes, 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.200 we should tell everybody about something very special and due 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.440 to our hearts New York City. That's right. We are 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:14.800 going to Comic Con and we will be doing a 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:19.239 live podcast on Friday, October twelve at Comic Con at 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:21.119 the jab At Center. It's like our new thing. We 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:23.000 did San Diego, now we do in New York. That's 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.480