Items tagged with chemistry
In the immortal words of The Simpsons, July 4th is a time to celebrate the independence of our nation by blowing up a small part of it. Despite the fact that fireworks are insanely dangerous, they’re also a lot of fun--and there’s a lot of chemistry behind the dazzling displays we here in States will enjoy all day and night. Professor John A. Conkling wrote a textbook called the Chemistry Of Pyrotechnics: Basic Principles And Theory (we’ll wait here for a moment while you go buy that online), and he posted a video discussing and demonstrating how it all works. In a nutshell, you need at least one chemical that’s oxygen-rich (an oxidizer), and you need fuel (such as sulfur,...
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