James, you explained the chemistry of combustion with such accuracy and detail while still keeping it simple enough for the general public to understand! Your explanation was so on point I think I'm going to adapt it for my own chemistry lectures. Great job to everyone involved!
The fire triangle: the three elements a fire needs to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen). The fire tetrahedron includes the addition of a component, the chemical chain reaction. 3:32 To put out a fire you need to remove any of the four conditions.
There are four components of fire: Heat, Fuel, Oxygen, and an Uninhibited Chemical Chain Reaction. You can extinguish a fire by inhibiting the reaction in the presence of the other three.
simple answer: the flame is a combination of the solids and gases that are being expelled from the fuel source and are undergoing chemical reactions to form new compounds. the heat energy of these excited molecules are what you are seeing, they all emit light but not all of it is visible. different chemicals emit different way lengths of light, some are visual such as the example of wood and some are not visible because they dont give a wavelength that you can see, such as methanol.
You said when you blow, you're giving it more oxygen. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're mistaken. High wind speed means lower pressure, lower pressure means less oxygen. It's the same effect that happens when you blow in between two empty soda cans, they are pulled together.
This is something I see a lot, people seem to have this notion that fire is some sort of form of matter or something. The thing you are seeing is the result of the chemical reactions described in the video (some fuel reacting with oxygen) which is light and heat, the colour of light how much energy the light waves (a sub category of the EM spectrum) have. I suspect if you looked at it under a really powerful microscope you would see atoms bonding and molecules splitting as well as all the light.
1:00 you should of talked about how when you rub the match on the sand paper it creates friction, which creates heat, which causes the chemicals on the match to reach ignition.
Fires actually have helped species survive even before it was used as a tool by humans. Forest fires produce open areas with fertile soil. A series of overlapping areas of fire over time creates opportunities for new plant species to be introduced and thus increases biodiversity. This then promotes more biodiversity in animal species that rely on various plants for food and shelter.
In fact, "white" is pretty much (by definition) the colour of daylight, in the sense that it's the colour our eyes see as neutral. This would be true regardless of the colour of the Sun; our vision would simply have adapted to whichever star we evolved near. Due to the effect of the Earth's atmosphere, the Sun looks slightly yellow, while a lot of blue light radiates from the rest of the sky. The result is shadows look slightly bluer than lit areas, but the average is what we call "white".
That dates back to the origins of the typewriter. Early typewriters used metal arms to print the letters onto paper. It was found that if neighbouring keys were pressed too quickly, the arms of the typewriter would jam. The QWERTY layout was designed so that letters that were commonly next to one another in words were spaced far apart on the keyboard. Thus eliminating the chance of jams occurring.
They're laid out like that so that letters that are commonly used next to each other aren't next to each other on the keyboard. This was done for when typewriters were being used to stop the mechanics from getting jammed if letters next to each other were pressed.
The video was about flame and said colour indicates temperature. Flame comes from oxidisation - not fusion, but does the same still apply? Can you use colour to determine the temperature of fusion? The colour of stars, like the sun, is used to determine distance and speed - via the dopler effect and the Hubble constant. Presumably it tells us the temperature, too - albeit within a very different range. (i.e. I am sure the sun is hotter than a yellow flame at 1200 celcius!)
For those who saw the wal-mart commercial at the beginning...don't expect things to be in stock even if they have been advertised. They will let you wait 30 mins until telling you they sold out 2 days ago.
It would take an enormous amount of wind to put out a fire but it is true that heat is being taken away. What we breathe out isn't pure CO2 so you can still blow on a candle without it going out
+888SpinR I'd say it's a borderline case, because it's so small. It is also comparatively easily made without organic means. In fact, there are clouds of ethanol and methanol in space.
Subbed but not irritated when they ask the unknown number of viewers who aren't to do so. "Oh no they took a few seconds out of this free content to promote themselves! Outrageous!"
Well, in this case a difference between 1200 and 1500 degrees is 20%. Thus a rough but still rather accurate estimate compared to putting your hand in the flame to measure it which doesn't matter after ~70 degrees, the pain is the same.
Hi. It's mainly because Sun doesn't have oxygen with which hydrogen (which there is plenty of) could react to make water. Additionally, the temperatures in the Sun are so high that elements exist as plasma; nucleus (protons) and electrons separated - and since it's just the electrons that participate in chemical reactions (and burning is a chemical reaction), it wouldn't quite work at those temperatures anyway - but other reactions (nuclear ones) can and do in fact happen in the Sun.
Can you get James to do one on wave mechanics? Like why, when sitting at a stoplight, all the blinkers on the cars ahead of you synch for a moment and then go in a seemingly random pattern?
well, it would be the leftovers of the fuel's reaction with the oxygen, vaporized. Like when burning wood, it isn't actual wood being vaporized, it is carbon dioxide, water vapor and particles that smoke is made of, being heated and emitting light.
Doesn't blowing on a candle also lower the amount of oxygen, compared to the carbon dioxide you're exhaling, near the candle, thus removing, or at least diminishing, that part of the triangle too?
Is it true that combustion is, basically, simply an oxidation reaction? Also, based on things I have learned in the past, I have often postulated that we, humans, are also just a big, slow, combustion reaction. I'd like to know if I'm correct, at least by definition. Thanks.
Your breath has oxygen in it (along with carbon dioxide and a few other things). That's why we (used to) blow into someone's lungs during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
I've got two related questions. How do the cells in our body hold themselves together? Or for a different take on that, how did the early single celled organisms on Earth evolve into multicellular organisms?
"How do the cells in our body hold themselves together?" as simple as possible: Strong force for atoms (quarks/leptons -> protons/neutrons = nucleus -> atoms) Elektroweak force for molecules Gravity for everything else that moleculs form Strong and Eletroweak force keep us from merging with everthing else around us that Gravity is trying to "push" or "Pull" us into.
0:45 150 degrees C seems low for the ignition point of wood. 2:00 "Rough, but actually quite precise"??? That's scientific? 2:52 Gravity alone does not explain the "pointy shape" of flames. It's the inrush of cooler air from around the flame that does that, so you need fluid dynamics as well.
you would see the molecules of the fuel break apart, and make other binds woth the oxygen. the fire itself is heated gas, which are so hot the emit light.
Because the inventor of the typewriter decided to put commonly used letters in easy to reach locations on the keyboard, and people who were fluent with typewriters wanted to be able to use that skill on computers as well, and here we are.
the principle remains the same, you are witnessing the by-products of the chemical reactions of the fuel source and the oxygen. they (the by products of the fuel source being burned) are just emitting a different wavelength than 'traditional' orange/yellow flames, so chemicals produce wavelengths that you can not see with your eyes bacause the wave length doesnt fall in the 'visual spectrum', methanol is a great example of this.
They alphabet you used to write that comment is descended from the first alphabet created by the Pheonicians or Hebrew, most likely developed from the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Because other alphabets based on this (like Arabic) have roughly the same order, it was presumed that the person who made the alphabet made it in a certain order, and it stayed that way. New alphabets that came from it changed a bit, but were still similar.
Metals don't burn in the traditional sense though. A tad below the melting point, the metal gets hot enough for most atoms to be unbound, allowing them to react with the air and oxidize. This was actually used in the middle ages to burn impurities out of steel via pattern welding or folding. After blast furnaces were invented, most impurities could already be removed through the smelting process, so this technique was no longer needed.
Sodium is a metal. Throw it on water and boom! It will burn (and explode) at room temperature. So yeah, they burn, and can be achieved by different means.
Well he explains how fire Is created and what happens to the fuel.. But I didn't get quite what Is the flame. I wanted to know more about the volatile gases and the exothermic reaction.
you have to make the leap here. the fire is the chemical reactions, the flame is the visual light cause by said chemical reaction. volatile gases are not fire or flames, they are just gases . fire/ flames are the exothermic reactions that produce waves of energy in a spectrum that you can visually see. these reactions of course being the result of a substance oxidizing under intense heat. does that make a little more sense?
You can, there are a ton of different keyboard layouts. Its just qwerty is the most common. There are layouts that are optimised for faster typeing by putting the common keys next to your fingers and the less coomon ones (z,j etc) further away from your fingers so that they dont have to spend as much time travelling therefore faster typing. But personally i hate the alphabetical on screen keyboards because i cant find the letters, what ever you are used to i guess.
whether it's fusion or oxidation is irrelevant. The sun gives multiple wavelengths of the electro-magnetic spectrum (gamma rays, ultraviolet, radio etc). We ,as humans ,can only see a certain range wavelengths. We normally see yellow due to the bending of the light as it entered Earths atmosphere, in truth the sun is more white than yellow or orange as Richard asked.
I'm not talking about contents of gas, even though, in fact, the air we breathe out has about 5% less oxygen in it than the air around us that's feeding the fire, I'm talking about gas pressure. There will be less of any gas when there is low pressure.
I get that Its not a "solid" thing.. Its just that I can't get exactly what It Is... Like light Is made of photons and heat it's the vibration of the molecules. But what gives the fire Its shape and characteristics? What happens at a atomic level when you heat oil to the ignition point? Is It the fuel vaporized and heated up so It emits light?
Now I know this sounds insane. but how hot would Blake fire be. If white fire can be 15,000 degrees. how hot would a fire be if in the opposite side of the spectrum
the bottom of Jeremy Clarkson's ashtray haha love it
James, you explained the chemistry of combustion with such accuracy and detail while still keeping it simple enough for the general public to understand! Your explanation was so on point I think I'm going to adapt it for my own chemistry lectures. Great job to everyone involved!
I thought the fire triangle was heat, Jeremy Clarkson and a caravan?
I love his humor it catches you off guard haha
the humour is pretty... LIT... get it... cause it is on FIRE.... ok.. I'll leave now
some say he is only ignitable under water.
and that he is fascinated by James Mays wobbling hair.
all we know is, he is called the Stig!
You're in luck! James takes on 'How Do Magnets Works?' this Friday 6th Sep. Hope you enjoy it.
Every time I heard "Stick" I heard "Stig".
I watch too much Top Gear....
Same here :)
Me too
English Muffinz best thing is he wouldn't say a word, perhaps not even run. Probably would just get in the nearest car and drive into a lake
What is the ignition point of the Stig?
Peter Gogola a bit below the steering wheel and to one side.
You just answered a 25y/o question for me...... I use to sit by the camp fire thinking, what is it made of... what IS fire
...thanks James
THAT WAS FIREEEE BRO
My mixtape
The fire triangle: the three elements a fire needs to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen). The fire tetrahedron includes the addition of a component, the chemical chain reaction.
3:32 To put out a fire you need to remove any of the four conditions.
Three conditions m8.. listen carefully
And you should read carefully. He's explaining that there are four conditions and what the fourth is.
That got dark at the end.
what is love?
I love how he still pokes fun at Jeremy even in another series
There are four components of fire: Heat, Fuel, Oxygen, and an Uninhibited Chemical Chain Reaction. You can extinguish a fire by inhibiting the reaction in the presence of the other three.
Love how everything was resting on the counter and the spaceman was running around the floor in the zero gravity situation haha
I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU.. FIRE!
Damned + Sulphur + Oxygen + Heat goes to Damned-dioxide, Sulphur-Dioxide
When flint was off his nut so maximus stepped in to do the song. Ahhh those were the rave days.
great teaching. saw many vids but this one explained it right
JAMES MAY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE POWER YOU COULD COMMAND!
simple answer: the flame is a combination of the solids and gases that are being expelled from the fuel source and are undergoing chemical reactions to form new compounds. the heat energy of these excited molecules are what you are seeing, they all emit light but not all of it is visible. different chemicals emit different way lengths of light, some are visual such as the example of wood and some are not visible because they dont give a wavelength that you can see, such as methanol.
You said when you blow, you're giving it more oxygen. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're mistaken. High wind speed means lower pressure, lower pressure means less oxygen. It's the same effect that happens when you blow in between two empty soda cans, they are pulled together.
This is something I see a lot, people seem to have this notion that fire is some sort of form of matter or something. The thing you are seeing is the result of the chemical reactions described in the video (some fuel reacting with oxygen) which is light and heat, the colour of light how much energy the light waves (a sub category of the EM spectrum) have. I suspect if you looked at it under a really powerful microscope you would see atoms bonding and molecules splitting as well as all the light.
1:00 you should of talked about how when you rub the match on the sand paper it creates friction, which creates heat, which causes the chemicals on the match to reach ignition.
Fires actually have helped species survive even before it was used as a tool by humans. Forest fires produce open areas with fertile soil. A series of overlapping areas of fire over time creates opportunities for new plant species to be introduced and thus increases biodiversity. This then promotes more biodiversity in animal species that rely on various plants for food and shelter.
In fact, "white" is pretty much (by definition) the colour of daylight, in the sense that it's the colour our eyes see as neutral. This would be true regardless of the colour of the Sun; our vision would simply have adapted to whichever star we evolved near.
Due to the effect of the Earth's atmosphere, the Sun looks slightly yellow, while a lot of blue light radiates from the rest of the sky. The result is shadows look slightly bluer than lit areas, but the average is what we call "white".
That dates back to the origins of the typewriter.
Early typewriters used metal arms to print the letters onto paper. It was found that if neighbouring keys were pressed too quickly, the arms of the typewriter would jam.
The QWERTY layout was designed so that letters that were commonly next to one another in words were spaced far apart on the keyboard. Thus eliminating the chance of jams occurring.
They're laid out like that so that letters that are commonly used next to each other aren't next to each other on the keyboard. This was done for when typewriters were being used to stop the mechanics from getting jammed if letters next to each other were pressed.
Great explanation.
Very well put.
The video was about flame and said colour indicates temperature. Flame comes from oxidisation - not fusion, but does the same still apply? Can you use colour to determine the temperature of fusion? The colour of stars, like the sun, is used to determine distance and speed - via the dopler effect and the Hubble constant. Presumably it tells us the temperature, too - albeit within a very different range. (i.e. I am sure the sun is hotter than a yellow flame at 1200 celcius!)
For those who saw the wal-mart commercial at the beginning...don't expect things to be in stock even if they have been advertised. They will let you wait 30 mins until telling you they sold out 2 days ago.
No rain check and NO appology
this is an excellent point
It would take an enormous amount of wind to put out a fire but it is true that heat is being taken away. What we breathe out isn't pure CO2 so you can still blow on a candle without it going out
b-b-but methanol is organic too
+888SpinR I'd say it's a borderline case, because it's so small. It is also comparatively easily made without organic means. In fact, there are clouds of ethanol and methanol in space.
Subbed but not irritated when they ask the unknown number of viewers who aren't to do so. "Oh no they took a few seconds out of this free content to promote themselves! Outrageous!"
so, does this mean that oxidative phosphorylation that occurs within our mitochondriae, is some sort of fire?, is breathing a combustion process?
Thanks for stressing that lighting a fire in a zero-gravity environment is a bad idea. I had been planning on doing that today.
combustion is a more rapid oxidation, a lot more heat is released and the process occurs relativly fast as oposed to the oxidation of iron
when you think of volatile gases, you are usually referring to gases that are highly flammable. i hope of this helps
How do you generate thrust in a weightless/vacuumed environment ?
Well, in this case a difference between 1200 and 1500 degrees is 20%. Thus a rough but still rather accurate estimate compared to putting your hand in the flame to measure it which doesn't matter after ~70 degrees, the pain is the same.
If only I could be so grossly incandescent...
+Robin Powell \[T]/
Hey James May! I like when you drive fast cars, as well as talk about science.
I'd like to know why fences always seem to go round the outside of fields?
this is my personal favorite :3
Hi. It's mainly because Sun doesn't have oxygen with which hydrogen (which there is plenty of) could react to make water. Additionally, the temperatures in the Sun are so high that elements exist as plasma; nucleus (protons) and electrons separated - and since it's just the electrons that participate in chemical reactions (and burning is a chemical reaction), it wouldn't quite work at those temperatures anyway - but other reactions (nuclear ones) can and do in fact happen in the Sun.
Could you say the temperatures in Fahrenheit as well?
Very nice !
I have a question, if something were to explode in space (a vacum), what would happen? What is the energy behind an explosion?
Thank you for the explanation!
***** so if i threw a grenade at you while we were in space nothinig would happen?
Can you get James to do one on wave mechanics? Like why, when sitting at a stoplight, all the blinkers on the cars ahead of you synch for a moment and then go in a seemingly random pattern?
well, it would be the leftovers of the fuel's reaction with the oxygen, vaporized. Like when burning wood, it isn't actual wood being vaporized, it is carbon dioxide, water vapor and particles that smoke is made of, being heated and emitting light.
Without any prior credible knowledge i thought that if you "blow out a flame on a candle" you detach the fire from its fuel, not remove the heat
Awesome! Haha, I have watched the video, but I bet it will be!
Doesn't blowing on a candle also lower the amount of oxygen, compared to the carbon dioxide you're exhaling, near the candle, thus removing, or at least diminishing, that part of the triangle too?
we would need about 3 weeks of video for that, and all scientists from the globe
Is it true that combustion is, basically, simply an oxidation reaction? Also, based on things I have learned in the past, I have often postulated that we, humans, are also just a big, slow, combustion reaction. I'd like to know if I'm correct, at least by definition. Thanks.
I’m feeling a bit nostalgic for videos I used to watch
Forgot I made this comment
this video was published on my birthday..yay! I would to ask "why do we like to ask questions?"
Vsause has a video on that, it's another brilliant factual channel and after watching a few of his videos you'll be a genius
What is the space between the flame and the thing that is burning?
Your breath has oxygen in it (along with carbon dioxide and a few other things). That's why we (used to) blow into someone's lungs during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
I've got two related questions. How do the cells in our body hold themselves together? Or for a different take on that, how did the early single celled organisms on Earth evolve into multicellular organisms?
"How do the cells in our body hold themselves together?"
as simple as possible:
Strong force for atoms (quarks/leptons -> protons/neutrons = nucleus -> atoms)
Elektroweak force for molecules
Gravity for everything else that moleculs form
Strong and Eletroweak force keep us from merging with everthing else around us that Gravity is trying to "push" or "Pull" us into.
How does induction works?
0:45 150 degrees C seems low for the ignition point of wood.
2:00 "Rough, but actually quite precise"??? That's scientific?
2:52 Gravity alone does not explain the "pointy shape" of flames. It's the inrush of cooler air from around the flame that does that, so you need fluid dynamics as well.
you would see the molecules of the fuel break apart, and make other binds woth the oxygen. the fire itself is heated gas, which are so hot the emit light.
What is fire? You're probably also wondering: "What am the sky?" Or, "How does eat food?"
Because the inventor of the typewriter decided to put commonly used letters in easy to reach locations on the keyboard, and people who were fluent with typewriters wanted to be able to use that skill on computers as well, and here we are.
the principle remains the same, you are witnessing the by-products of the chemical reactions of the fuel source and the oxygen. they (the by products of the fuel source being burned) are just emitting a different wavelength than 'traditional' orange/yellow flames, so chemicals produce wavelengths that you can not see with your eyes bacause the wave length doesnt fall in the 'visual spectrum', methanol is a great example of this.
Are there other substances that would behave like oxygen without actually containing it?
They alphabet you used to write that comment is descended from the first alphabet created by the Pheonicians or Hebrew, most likely developed from the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Because other alphabets based on this (like Arabic) have roughly the same order, it was presumed that the person who made the alphabet made it in a certain order, and it stayed that way. New alphabets that came from it changed a bit, but were still similar.
Do Metals have an ignition point as well?
+Lucas Lisznianksi They do.
Its just very high
Metals don't burn in the traditional sense though. A tad below the melting point, the metal gets hot enough for most atoms to be unbound, allowing them to react with the air and oxidize. This was actually used in the middle ages to burn impurities out of steel via pattern welding or folding. After blast furnaces were invented, most impurities could already be removed through the smelting process, so this technique was no longer needed.
Sodium is a metal. Throw it on water and boom! It will burn (and explode) at room temperature. So yeah, they burn, and can be achieved by different means.
Yay science!
Well he explains how fire Is created and what happens to the fuel.. But I didn't get quite what Is the flame. I wanted to know more about the volatile gases and the exothermic reaction.
you have to make the leap here. the fire is the chemical reactions, the flame is the visual light cause by said chemical reaction. volatile gases are not fire or flames, they are just gases . fire/ flames are the exothermic reactions that produce waves of energy in a spectrum that you can visually see. these reactions of course being the result of a substance oxidizing under intense heat. does that make a little more sense?
So how hot is Green and blue flames?
I'm not sure if this is because of blue shift or something else but how come there are blue stars if there is no blue fire?
3:55 What's the comment about moving out and having no house about?
A joke about your house burning down
Season 20 has recently aired on BBC 2. Season 21 will be with is in probably 6 or so months. Did that answer your question?
WHAT abaut ice flames i was w8ing 4 that 2 come ..
Don't mean to sound like Jeremy Clarkson but these videos do help me fall asleep
0:51 Did he just say, "I do this by holding the match under the stig"? Haha!
You can, there are a ton of different keyboard layouts. Its just qwerty is the most common. There are layouts that are optimised for faster typeing by putting the common keys next to your fingers and the less coomon ones (z,j etc) further away from your fingers so that they dont have to spend as much time travelling therefore faster typing. But personally i hate the alphabetical on screen keyboards because i cant find the letters, what ever you are used to i guess.
whether it's fusion or oxidation is irrelevant. The sun gives multiple wavelengths of the electro-magnetic spectrum (gamma rays, ultraviolet, radio etc). We ,as humans ,can only see a certain range wavelengths. We normally see yellow due to the bending of the light as it entered Earths atmosphere, in truth the sun is more white than yellow or orange as Richard asked.
"...to set the Stig on fire..." :D
How Oscilators in analog synths work ?
I'm not talking about contents of gas, even though, in fact, the air we breathe out has about 5% less oxygen in it than the air around us that's feeding the fire, I'm talking about gas pressure. There will be less of any gas when there is low pressure.
The video didn't actually explain what fire is - it did explain what creates fire.
Feynman has a good explanation of what fire is.
I get that Its not a "solid" thing.. Its just that I can't get exactly what It Is... Like light Is made of photons and heat it's the vibration of the molecules. But what gives the fire Its shape and characteristics? What happens at a atomic level when you heat oil to the ignition point? Is It the fuel vaporized and heated up so It emits light?
So the flame would be the fuel vaporized?
1:42 isn't methanol organic?
What about blue colour flames?
Um, you don't need a silver blanket to put out a chip pan fire, you can also use a hand full or two of baking powder.
What about magnets? How do they work?
Does gunpowder have it's own oxidizer? Anyone know?
How dose the combustion engine work
Compresses fuel mixture, which ignites due to the pressure (due to huge amounts of friction) and it makes the gas expand
Now I know this sounds insane. but how hot would Blake fire be. If white fire can be 15,000 degrees. how hot would a fire be if in the opposite side of the spectrum
Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark
Why does water "evaporate" in the street, on puddles and such?
Okay, but why is fire like fire not an item glowing like neon stick or something? What makes light so far away from the fuel?
I watch these videos to learn James may's English accent
How are fingerprints formed, and why are they all different?