WEBVTT
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Χμμμ.
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Με συγχωρείτε.
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Συγγνώμη.
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Όχι,όχι,όχι. Όχι εκεί πάνω.
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I'm down here.
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Yup.
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Hello!
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I am a scientist. And I've come to improve your situation just a bit.
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See that fire over there?
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Have you ever really wondered what the flames are from that fire? I mean look at all of those colors.
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And you feel that heat. It's hot, right?
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Well gee, it must be torture being around all these flames and not knowing what they are.
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Here, take a look at this cupcake.
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You see a flame on top of this delicious looking cupcake?
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You do like cupcakes, don't you?
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Let's take a closer look, shall we?
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Fantastic!
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If we look at the flame on top of this cupcake, we first notice a few things, like all the colors
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At the bottom, we have this blue-ish color.
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On the top, it's more yellow, orange, redish.
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Also the flame is hot.
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Why is it so flaming hot?
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Well, to answer these questions, you need to know something very important.
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You see everything is made up of tiny things
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called atoms. And these things are the building
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blocks that make up everything!
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And they're really small.
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Smaller.
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Smaller!
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Even smaller!
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Hey, look, you can't even see
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them, they're so small.
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Exactly!
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Anything you can think of is made up of atoms.
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Yup, this air condition is made up of atoms.
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This delicious popsicle is made up of atoms.
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This ice water is made up of atoms.
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Everything is made up of billions and billions of atoms.
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Now, this candle and flame are made up of three kinds of atoms
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carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
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The carbon and the hydrogen are locked together
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to form the solid wax and wick.
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The oxygen is a gas all around us.
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Normally, the oxygen doesn't do much to the candle
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It just bounces off of the surface, not doing any real damage.
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But when we add heat, the oxygen
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atoms go bananas!
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And they shake the wax, like crazy!
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Until finally, with enough force, they snap apart.
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They leave the candle as a gas.
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where they mix with the oxygen.
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Uh oh, I smell trouble.
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Well the fancy science word for all of this is
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pyrolysis.
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It is the first thing that needs to happen to get a flame.
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It's when the fuel turns to a gas.
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Now let's see what happens when these hot gasses combine.
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Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner
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he was once a solid, now he's a gas. He's the fuel from the West!
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And in this corner, not one, but two groups of oxygen
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Ready?
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React!
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Narrator: Any time certain atoms get hit hard enough,
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they spit out blue light.
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And because there are lots of atoms getting hit hard
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and lots of atoms spitting out blue light
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we get a blue flame.
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Here comes another science word. Ready?
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Chemiluminescence.
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I know, it's a big one.
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One more time.
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Chemiluminescence.
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It's when atoms shine light
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when they rearrange.
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It's why flames are blue
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Now the blue light is not hot.
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Wait!
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But the blue flame is really hot!
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So if the blue light is not the hot part,
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then what does make a flame so hot?
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Well, remember our fuel atom?
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and our oxygen atoms?
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They rearranged to make new stuff like water
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and carbon dioxide.
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And as they rearrange, they snap together.
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And with each
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snap
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the new thing shakes like crazy!
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So when the rearranging is done, we have
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lots of new stuff
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all shaking really fast!
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If we put something close to those raging atoms
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then those atoms begin shaking like crazy too,
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like the atoms in our fingers -- that's heat.
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This is called oxidation.
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It's when the oxygen atoms combine with other atoms to make new stuff.
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It's why flames are so hot.
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Alright then, why are most flames
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yellow, orange, red?
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Well, remember our first reaction?
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We had one group of fuel atoms and two groups of oxygen.
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They made a flame that was very hot.
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And only blue.
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But watch what happens if there's not enough oxygen
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and we take some away.
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Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen what happens when there's
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not enough oxygen?
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*audience gasp*
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Announcer: what's this? A single carbon atom left all alone!
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Narrator: It's okay, because all of his left-over carbon
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friends come to join him
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and they form large, black particles we call soot.
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Okay, they're not so large. They're so small
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we can't even see them.
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But to a single atom, they are enormouse!
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Announcer: Enormous!
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Narrator: I know what you're thinking.
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How do black particles make yellow flames?
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Well let me show you.
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But first, I need something big and black
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like this pitch fork.
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Excuse me sir, Your Evilness,
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could you please place your pitch fork in
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those scorching flames? Thank you.
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Big black objects are like sponges that soak up heat.
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They have to get rid of this energy, so they spit it out
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by glowing.
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The hotter they get, the more brightly they glow.
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Now the same thing happens with our soot particles.
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They drink in heat from all those hot atoms.
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And they glow brighter and brighter!
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Until they look like this!
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And because there are millions and millions of soot particles
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all glowing hot
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we get this yellow flame.
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Audience: ooh!
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This is called incandescence.
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It's when the soot particles glow because they're hot.
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it's the reason why flames are yellow.
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Well, that's it. That's what flames are.
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I mean, who knew cupcakes could be so much fun.
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Remember, first the fuel loses mass and turns into a gas.
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Before the next change is through, atoms shine blue.
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When the process is complete, it gives off heat.
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Extra carbon will grow red, orange, and yellow.
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Hey, those are just like the lyrics from that
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really awesome song about flames.
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You know, the one that goes:
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The fuel loses mass
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it turns to gas.
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Before the next change is through
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some atoms shine blue.
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When the process is complete
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it gives off heat.
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Extra carbon will glow
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red, orange, yellow.
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The fuel loses mass
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it turns to a gas
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Before the next change is through
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some atoms turn blue.
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When the process is complete
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it gives off heat.
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Extra carbon will glow
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red, orange, yellow.
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*chorus repeats*
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vocal backing: Pyrolysis
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Chemiluminescence
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Oxidation
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Incandescence
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repeat
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*song finishes*
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*credits song*