I was demonstrating an induction coil in one of my physics classes
today. One of my students asked whether the arcing current could light
a match. I didn't know the answer, so i taped a match to a meter stick
and tried it. Nothing happened.
At that point, because I now had a match on the end of a meter stick, I
thought it might be fun to see whether the current affected the flame.
So I lit the match and held the flame (on the end of the meter stick)
near the arc. When I did this, the arc jumped into the flame.
In retrospect, this makes sense. I believe this must occur because the
flame is a redox (electron transfer) reaction, and the reaction
components were acting as a source and/or sink for the electrons arcing
between the electrodes of the induction coil.
I thought this was a physics/chemistry connection that was interesting
enough to be worth sharing.
--
Jeff Bigler
"Magic" is what we call Science before we understand it.
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