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How do fireworks work? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I have an explosive question for you. Oh
0:11
Speaker 1: are you gonna ask me about how to blow things up?
0:13
Speaker 1: Isn't that what you do every day anyways at the
0:16
Speaker 1: particle Collider. I mean, like on a more everyday basis.
0:19
Speaker 1: How do you feel about summer fireworks? M I used
0:22
Speaker 1: to love fireworks as a kid. I used to love him.
0:25
Speaker 1: You don't like him anymore. I guess I just used
0:27
Speaker 1: to have a more sparkling personality. Well, you can be
0:31
Speaker 1: a real fire cracker, trust me. I'm hoping one day
0:34
Speaker 1: that all blows over. Very bright and ploughing personality. Also,
0:38
Speaker 1: you seem to make a lot of noise. So far,
0:41
Speaker 1: I've never been fired from work for setting off fireworks.
0:59
Speaker 1: I am hor I'm a cartoonist and the creator of
1:01
Speaker 1: PhD comics. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and
1:04
Speaker 1: a professor at U C Irvine, and I really do
1:07
Speaker 1: love blowing things up. Oh yeah, do you do that
1:09
Speaker 1: as a hobby, not just in your work. Yeah, I'm
1:13
Speaker 1: pitching a new reality show called Will It Explode? Interesting?
1:19
Speaker 1: I guess if you don't like your fingers or hands,
1:23
Speaker 1: that sounds like a great show to join. I think
1:25
Speaker 1: everybody would want to tune in and see how much
1:28
Speaker 1: T and T does it take to blow up this
1:30
Speaker 1: or that, a banana, a watermelon, a coconut. You remind
1:33
Speaker 1: me of my cousin when we were a little I
1:36
Speaker 1: could love to blow things up with and had that
1:39
Speaker 1: work out for your cousin. All right, he's still alive,
1:42
Speaker 1: still has all his fingers, he managed to survive success,
1:45
Speaker 1: And I hope his job lets him blow things up
1:47
Speaker 1: on a regular basis like mine actually fixes planes now,
1:51
Speaker 1: so I hope, I hope it doesn't blow things up.
1:57
Speaker 1: His job is the opposite now of his childhood passion.
1:59
Speaker 1: That's keep things are blowing up, please because but anyways,
2:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,
2:05
Speaker 1: a production of our Heart Radio. We're the only thing
2:07
Speaker 1: we want to blow up is your mind. As we
2:10
Speaker 1: delve into the secrets of the universe and try to
2:13
Speaker 1: understand how it all works. We take apart the very
2:17
Speaker 1: fabric of space and time and reality and seek to
2:20
Speaker 1: understand it at the smallest level. How does the universe
2:24
Speaker 1: really work? What are its most fundamental bits, and how
2:27
Speaker 1: do those weave themselves together to make this incredible exciting
2:31
Speaker 1: and explosive universe that we enjoy every summer. Yeah, it
2:35
Speaker 1: is an exploding universe. As we know, dark energy is
2:38
Speaker 1: making the universe accelerated and expand faster and faster each day. Literally,
2:42
Speaker 1: it is sort of exploding, and it's also full of sparkly,
2:44
Speaker 1: amazing and colorful things for us to wonder about. That's right,
2:47
Speaker 1: although thinking about the Big Bang and the expansion of
2:50
Speaker 1: the universe as an explosion does tend to lead people
2:53
Speaker 1: to thinking about things the wrong way. A lot of
2:56
Speaker 1: people think about the Big Bang is like this tiny
2:58
Speaker 1: dot of matter which then blew up into space which
3:01
Speaker 1: already existed. So these days our vision of the early
3:04
Speaker 1: universe isn't as much like a firecracker as it is
3:07
Speaker 1: like a big rubber sheet getting stretched everywhere. Then maybe
3:11
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have called it the Big Bang. I mean,
3:13
Speaker 1: it's in the name Dead Hill. The Big Bang sounds
3:15
Speaker 1: like an explosion. It does indeed sound like an explosion,
3:18
Speaker 1: and so we'll add to the list of horribly named
3:21
Speaker 1: astronomical concepts. I mean, you just misnamed the entire universe.
3:24
Speaker 1: I mean, just a small error there. We should have
3:27
Speaker 1: called it the Big Stretch. But it is interesting. Do
3:32
Speaker 1: you see your job as blowing things up? You said
3:34
Speaker 1: earlier you like blowing things up, and you're a particle physicist,
3:37
Speaker 1: which means you collide things, because that is that also
3:40
Speaker 1: the same thing as blowing things up. Yeah, Well, the
3:42
Speaker 1: reason we collide things is to blow them up. Like
3:45
Speaker 1: you want to know what's inside a proton, you can't
3:48
Speaker 1: like put it on the table and tease it apart
3:50
Speaker 1: with pliers. What you gotta do is smash two of
3:53
Speaker 1: them together, blow them up, and see what comes out
3:55
Speaker 1: from that explosion. So every collision inside the large Hadron
3:59
Speaker 1: collider is like mini explosion, and we do millions of
4:02
Speaker 1: them per second. Also, it's more like a smashing. I
4:05
Speaker 1: don't know if it's exploding. Really, well, what happens if
4:09
Speaker 1: you smash two watermelons together? They explode? Don't they know?
4:12
Speaker 1: They're just mash If you put a grenade inside of
4:15
Speaker 1: a watermelon, that's an explosion. Well, if I could put
4:18
Speaker 1: a grenade inside a proton, I would totally do it.
4:21
Speaker 1: But what would the grenade be made out of? Daniel
4:24
Speaker 1: grenade on obviously delicious dessert explosions. But I'm also a
4:29
Speaker 1: big fan of aerial explosions, though maybe more so as
4:32
Speaker 1: a kid. Yeah, you mentioned that before, So you don't
4:35
Speaker 1: like fireworks anymore. Like you go to display and what
4:37
Speaker 1: either you close your ears or you close your eyes.
4:40
Speaker 1: I used to be really amazed by them. I thought
4:41
Speaker 1: they were fantastic when I was a kid, And now
4:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've just gotten old and grumpy,
4:45
Speaker 1: but they're just sort of less impressive. They're beautiful now,
4:49
Speaker 1: and they're they're getting more complicated now, right Like now
4:51
Speaker 1: they can you know, like sync them up with music
4:54
Speaker 1: and do all kinds of things like multiple explosions that
4:57
Speaker 1: make different formations up there in the sky. And as
5:01
Speaker 1: we come up on July four, it reminds me that
5:04
Speaker 1: the best fireworks display I ever saw for July four
5:07
Speaker 1: for American Independence Day was actually in Switzerland. Oh yeah,
5:11
Speaker 1: they make everything better out there, more precise. There's a
5:14
Speaker 1: huge American population in Switzerland, and so in Geneva they
5:18
Speaker 1: have an incredible July fourth fireworks display. In Geneva. It's
5:22
Speaker 1: like outside the US, but they go all out and
5:25
Speaker 1: have a life orchestra which plays music and coordination with
5:28
Speaker 1: the fireworks. It really was pretty impressive. So you do
5:31
Speaker 1: like fireworks then, Yeah, occasionally I've been known to enjoy
5:34
Speaker 1: them occasionally. I mean it, who doesn't like fireworks? Many dogs,
5:40
Speaker 1: dogs and physicists, dogs and jaded physicists. Well, when you
5:44
Speaker 1: blow things up for a living, you know you expect
5:46
Speaker 1: the higher standard. I guess right, right, when you smash
5:48
Speaker 1: things for a living, you mean you know you said
5:52
Speaker 1: you got the name for the origin of the universe wrong.
5:55
Speaker 1: Maybe you should be a little more careful. Yeah, point taken.
5:59
Speaker 1: But anyways, fireworks are pretty amazing and incredible and part
6:02
Speaker 1: of our tradition and part of how the world celebrates
6:04
Speaker 1: big events like independence and New Year's But it's kind
6:08
Speaker 1: of interesting to think about how that actually works. Yeah,
6:10
Speaker 1: it's an example of how we have put our knowledge
6:13
Speaker 1: of how the universe works to work for us. We
6:16
Speaker 1: manipulate these things and take advantage of them to create
6:18
Speaker 1: these incredible bright displays. But to do so you have
6:22
Speaker 1: to know some physics and some chemistry. Yeah. So today
6:25
Speaker 1: on the program, we're we tackling the question how the
6:32
Speaker 1: fireworks work, or I guess more technically, how the fireworks
6:37
Speaker 1: fire and work? And can you set off fireworks at
6:40
Speaker 1: work without getting fired? It is a bit of an oxymoron.
6:44
Speaker 1: It is, isn't it? In one word, you have the firing.
6:47
Speaker 1: You can fire someone and they can also work exactly fireworks.
6:52
Speaker 1: It's like we works, but we don't work. Yeah, firecrashed. Yeah,
6:58
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting to think about how far works work.
7:00
Speaker 1: But I think you sort of said earlier that it's
7:03
Speaker 1: the result of our knowledge at the universe, But really,
7:05
Speaker 1: sort of fireworks weren't you know? It didn't come from
7:08
Speaker 1: us understanding anything about the universe, right, I think it
7:10
Speaker 1: was mostly just people playing around with and maybe figuring
7:13
Speaker 1: out that some things blew up. You're absolutely right that
7:15
Speaker 1: fireworks have been with us for a lot longer than
7:18
Speaker 1: our understanding of the chemistry and the physics of them,
7:22
Speaker 1: that's for sure. In fact, I think they're invented in China,
7:25
Speaker 1: like more than a thousand years ago. So firework has
7:28
Speaker 1: been a part of a human existence for a very
7:30
Speaker 1: very long time, longer than we've had modern chemistry, that's
7:33
Speaker 1: for sure. How they were invented, do you think someone
7:35
Speaker 1: would just falling around with things and then that they
7:38
Speaker 1: blew up on them, and then the person next to
7:40
Speaker 1: them was like, oh, that's interesting. I love thinking about
7:43
Speaker 1: how people stumbled into understanding of how things work. You
7:47
Speaker 1: think about like think about like the metallurgy of swords.
7:50
Speaker 1: People have really refined techniques for exactly how to make
7:53
Speaker 1: very hard steal well before we had any understanding of
7:56
Speaker 1: the chemistry of it. And I think that must have
7:58
Speaker 1: just been accidentally disc covered people making mistakes and then discovering,
8:02
Speaker 1: oh wow, look this is pretty awesome. So yeah, I
8:04
Speaker 1: think gunpowder probably discovered accidentally. Interesting what we'll get into
8:09
Speaker 1: what how it works and how it was discovered. But
8:11
Speaker 1: as you said, the history of it is that it
8:12
Speaker 1: was invented in China about a thousand years ago. People
8:15
Speaker 1: are not sure. I guess there are no records of it.
8:17
Speaker 1: There are some records of it, and you can look
8:19
Speaker 1: at like Chinese historical drawings and visitors who went to
8:23
Speaker 1: China of course to see evidence of it for more
8:25
Speaker 1: than a thousand years. It's pretty cool. Do you think
8:28
Speaker 1: they were they invented as a like a celebration display
8:31
Speaker 1: or more for warfare. They were initially invented for celebration,
8:34
Speaker 1: they think, and then later applied for war. Like everything now,
8:39
Speaker 1: it's usually the other way around these days, right, the
8:42
Speaker 1: Internet was started for the military darpened it. Yeah, it
8:47
Speaker 1: was originally darpen it and then it became you know,
8:49
Speaker 1: cat videos and podcasts. I see, so you're saying fireworks,
8:54
Speaker 1: eventually we'll just turn into cat videos. That would be
8:56
Speaker 1: super impressive. If they can do a cat video with explosives,
9:00
Speaker 1: engineers could get to it. That is the goal. The
9:02
Speaker 1: way every life form eventually evolves into a crab, every
9:05
Speaker 1: form of weapon eventually evolves into a cap video. Well,
9:09
Speaker 1: and then eventually it came to Europe, but not until
9:11
Speaker 1: much later. That's right, in the fourteenth century is when
9:14
Speaker 1: Europe started to use fireworks and developed the same sort
9:17
Speaker 1: of technology, and then somehow it made it to American
9:19
Speaker 1: and became part of July fourth our celebrations. Yeah, but
9:22
Speaker 1: blowing things up have been part of how people celebrate
9:25
Speaker 1: things for a long long time. Watermelons, fireworks, hopefully not cats,
9:30
Speaker 1: the beginning of the universe with a big bang. Well,
9:33
Speaker 1: it's interesting because it's something that's in our everyday lives,
9:36
Speaker 1: almost or at least once or twice a year. But
9:38
Speaker 1: I mean, not a lot of people know how it works.
9:41
Speaker 1: And so as usual, we were wondering what would happen
9:43
Speaker 1: if you ask people on the street or on the
9:44
Speaker 1: internet how fire works work. So thanks very much to
9:47
Speaker 1: everybody out there who answers random questions about the Big Bang,
9:51
Speaker 1: the origin of the universe, and how fireworks work without
9:54
Speaker 1: any chance to repair. We really love you participating. And
9:57
Speaker 1: if you're out there and you've never joined in leaves,
10:00
Speaker 1: don't be shy right to us. Two questions at Daniel
10:02
Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. You want to hear from you,
10:05
Speaker 1: So think about it for a second. How do you
10:06
Speaker 1: think fireworks work? Here's but to say, there's some small
10:10
Speaker 1: amount of gunpowder in a tube that two explodes, creating
10:14
Speaker 1: a big old pressure wave in a tiny, little enclosed area.
10:17
Speaker 1: So that exerts a force on something that's gonna get
10:20
Speaker 1: shot into the air or or I guess whichever way
10:23
Speaker 1: you point it at a friend or a building or
10:27
Speaker 1: a car. And if it's one of those big fireworks,
10:29
Speaker 1: it probably has a second charge in it. You can
10:31
Speaker 1: put a bunch of different metals in there that are
10:33
Speaker 1: gonna burn at different colors, and that would be what
10:38
Speaker 1: makes all the pretty colors in the sky after that
10:40
Speaker 1: second charge goes off. It's my understanding that you have
10:43
Speaker 1: a shell that is made up of black powder or
10:48
Speaker 1: gunpowder or something explosive, surrounded by a little things, little
10:54
Speaker 1: balls of something that is dipped in as salt, like
10:58
Speaker 1: a strontium or um, you know, some sort of metal
11:02
Speaker 1: that when it heats up, it glows in a specific color.
11:05
Speaker 1: Fireworks show differently because I think they're chemicals within each
11:12
Speaker 1: display that ones exploded will reflect light differently, and that's
11:19
Speaker 1: what produces all of the beautiful colors. Fireworks are like
11:23
Speaker 1: an amazing confluence of chemistry and physics. There's all of
11:26
Speaker 1: this energy that you have stored in the in the
11:29
Speaker 1: propellant and the explosive that you're using, and then once
11:32
Speaker 1: you get it up there, you're using different chemicals to
11:35
Speaker 1: create all the wild colors and effects. It's early rockets
11:39
Speaker 1: and payloads of joy. Oh, I'm so excited if you
11:42
Speaker 1: are talking about fireworks. I love them, and yet I
11:45
Speaker 1: am not sure how they work. There's something explosive and
11:50
Speaker 1: different elements create different colors, I think, though I have
11:55
Speaker 1: no idea how they make those really cool ones with
11:57
Speaker 1: the different sparkles and sounds that sound like they're crackling.
12:01
Speaker 1: I love those. I think fireworks work by firing stuff
12:06
Speaker 1: out in the back of them. Um due to one
12:09
Speaker 1: of the two lads, which I can't remember. That means
12:11
Speaker 1: that due to the oppositey action, the firework will go
12:15
Speaker 1: up and then I guess some dynamite explodes. It makes
12:20
Speaker 1: it nice color in shape. Well. I always imagine fireworks
12:25
Speaker 1: as like a tiny, little colorful controlled bomb that exploded
12:28
Speaker 1: only once you reach the sky. But maybe it works differently.
12:32
Speaker 1: Fireworks work by oxidizing flammables with a specific chemical that
12:36
Speaker 1: emits light at a certain frequency, creating the different colors
12:40
Speaker 1: we see. All right, some pretty technical sounding answers. I
12:43
Speaker 1: like this one that said the confluence of chemistry and physics.
12:47
Speaker 1: That sounds almost poetic. Little do they know chemists and
12:51
Speaker 1: physicist never confluenced exactly. I was like, that's so naive, man,
12:54
Speaker 1: They're like all the way it went together. They're on
12:57
Speaker 1: the other side of campus, man, Like they do totally
12:59
Speaker 1: different physics from us. Chemistry might as well be sociology
13:03
Speaker 1: from our perspective. Is there a stereotype of like a
13:06
Speaker 1: chemist and physicist? Like one of them were are sandals?
13:09
Speaker 1: The other ones? Where where's socks and slippers? I don't know.
13:13
Speaker 1: Eye protection chemistry always wearing eye protection when I see
13:15
Speaker 1: them around the building. I see interesting the chemistry, you see.
13:19
Speaker 1: I have these huge labs of like thirty grad students
13:22
Speaker 1: pumping a different synthesis of this and that and the
13:24
Speaker 1: other thing. It's really amazing and impressive. No, I don't
13:27
Speaker 1: understand most of it. You sound a little jealous there. Well,
13:29
Speaker 1: you see I chemistry. Don't you have like thirty grads
13:31
Speaker 1: fouds yourself. I only have eight grad students right now,
13:35
Speaker 1: thank you. But the u CE chemistry department is top notch.
13:38
Speaker 1: Somebody who graduated from here won the Nobel Prize in
13:40
Speaker 1: chemistry last year. I think always an opportunity to plug
13:43
Speaker 1: u C. I. But yeah, it's pretty interesting. Everyone seems
13:47
Speaker 1: to have an idea that it's about exploding things, which
13:50
Speaker 1: sort of makes sense, and it may be a little obvious.
13:53
Speaker 1: There's an explosion involved in gunpowder. Yeah, but fireworks are
13:56
Speaker 1: much more than just an explosion. Right. If you've been
13:59
Speaker 1: to a recent fire work display, you've seen that they
14:01
Speaker 1: can do incredible stuff. They're sparkly, they're shimmery, they have
14:05
Speaker 1: different colors, they can make smiley faces. I've seen butterflies,
14:09
Speaker 1: I've seen palm trees. It's really amazing and what they
14:11
Speaker 1: can do up there in the sky. Yeah, Well for today,
14:15
Speaker 1: let's break it down maybe a little bit further, right,
14:18
Speaker 1: because when we think about fireworks and you know, celebrations
14:21
Speaker 1: like New Year's or July fourth, there's really sort of
14:23
Speaker 1: three things that people think about. Right. There's the firecrackers,
14:27
Speaker 1: the kind of just explode and make noise that they
14:30
Speaker 1: usually the kind of people throughout in the middle of
14:32
Speaker 1: the street. There are sparklers, which are the you know
14:35
Speaker 1: sticks that you hold and they had a lot of sparkles.
14:38
Speaker 1: And then there's a big fireworks displays that go up
14:40
Speaker 1: in the sky and give us all these amazing colors. Yeah,
14:43
Speaker 1: and those things are actually all connected. So that's a
14:45
Speaker 1: great order to tackle them in. All right, Well we'll
14:47
Speaker 1: start with the firecrackers, Daniel, How what is the what
14:50
Speaker 1: are the basics of a fire cracker? Firecracker is really
14:53
Speaker 1: pretty simple stuff. It's essentially just gunpowder in a little
14:57
Speaker 1: tube with a fuse, so it's just like a mini bomb, right,
15:01
Speaker 1: and all it does is rapidly burn the gunpowder, the
15:04
Speaker 1: black powder, and explode and give you a loud noise
15:07
Speaker 1: and a little bit of smoke. M M. But I
15:09
Speaker 1: guess the question is what is gunpowder? Yeah, I've wondered
15:12
Speaker 1: this for a long time. Actually gunpowder is this weird
15:15
Speaker 1: mixture of stuff. So it's got some charcoal in it,
15:19
Speaker 1: like of it is sulfur, and then seventy of it
15:24
Speaker 1: is this stuff called saltpeter, which I always thought was
15:26
Speaker 1: really weird, like who is Peter and why is he
15:29
Speaker 1: so salty? But it's basically just like a funny historical
15:32
Speaker 1: name for a chemical potassium nitrate. Interesting, maybe salt Peter
15:37
Speaker 1: is the cousin of Sweet John. I think they're both
15:42
Speaker 1: blues singers. Sounds like, you know, Mississippi Saltpeter or something. Alright,
15:46
Speaker 1: So to make gunpowder, you just need charcoal, sulfur and
15:49
Speaker 1: potassium nitrate. Now what what's potassium nitrate? It's like p
15:54
Speaker 1: K can end something. Yeah, So the chemical formula is
15:57
Speaker 1: k N O three. So got potassium, it's got nitrogen,
16:01
Speaker 1: it's got oxygen, and it occurs in nature as a
16:04
Speaker 1: mineral and it's a useful source of nitrogen and it's
16:08
Speaker 1: used in fertilizers and also for like obviously rocket propellants
16:12
Speaker 1: and fireworks, and they also put some of it in
16:14
Speaker 1: process meats. Wait what, Oh, that's right, like a curing agent.
16:19
Speaker 1: And like the reason that like red hot dogs are
16:22
Speaker 1: red is because the potassium nitrate. Well, does that mean
16:26
Speaker 1: hot dogs are flammable and they'll explode? I can light
16:28
Speaker 1: them up? Is that why they're called hot dogs? I
16:33
Speaker 1: don't know. But the first thing I would do is
16:34
Speaker 1: take two hot dogs and accelerate them together. See if
16:36
Speaker 1: that can generate a nice hot dog smash. Yeah, that
16:39
Speaker 1: sounds like a great use of a billion dollar facility
16:42
Speaker 1: in Geneva. Maybe for July July four party smash hot
16:46
Speaker 1: dogs and so and sell them to little kids. Okay,
16:51
Speaker 1: so that's gunpowder, charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate. Now why
16:54
Speaker 1: does that light up? Why does that explode? Mm? And
16:57
Speaker 1: so what's happening anytime you have an explosion is just
16:59
Speaker 1: a rapid release of energy and like one shell of
17:03
Speaker 1: exploding material and sets off the next one. It's sort
17:06
Speaker 1: of just like a fire in the sense of like
17:07
Speaker 1: the way one piece of wood ignites the next piece,
17:10
Speaker 1: but here it happens very very rapidly, So you have
17:12
Speaker 1: a rapid emission of energy, usually faster than the speed
17:16
Speaker 1: of sound. That's what an explosive is. It's usually supersonic.
17:19
Speaker 1: So that's the basics of an explosion. The details depend
17:22
Speaker 1: on exactly what you have in there, how rapidly it oxidizes,
17:26
Speaker 1: how rapidly it releases that energy. Wait, so maybe it
17:29
Speaker 1: take us through that process then, like what's what's going on?
17:31
Speaker 1: What is oxidizing? Name what do you need like a
17:34
Speaker 1: flame to get it started? Right? So fundamental process that's
17:37
Speaker 1: happening here chemically is something called combustion, right, which technically
17:41
Speaker 1: is just like high temperature exothermic, which means it's releasing energy.
17:46
Speaker 1: So you're doing some chemical change to what's going on inside.
17:48
Speaker 1: You're changing the molecules and their bonds in a way
17:51
Speaker 1: that releases some stored energy, the same way like when
17:54
Speaker 1: you burn gasoline, right, it releases energy that used to
17:57
Speaker 1: be stored inside the fuel. So here it's an exothermic
18:00
Speaker 1: reaction is called a redox reaction because it reacts with
18:04
Speaker 1: some oxidant. Often that's atmospheric oxygen. Like fire needs oxygen, right,
18:08
Speaker 1: it's part of the chemical process to release the energy
18:11
Speaker 1: that's bound inside the wood. Here, you also need some
18:14
Speaker 1: source of oxygen, but there's not enough oxygen in the
18:17
Speaker 1: atmosphere to get this reaction going and to have it
18:19
Speaker 1: happen so fast. You wanted to start in the center
18:22
Speaker 1: and then explode outwards. And you know they can't access
18:26
Speaker 1: enough oxygen to just take that from the air, so
18:29
Speaker 1: you have to provide a source of oxygen to make
18:32
Speaker 1: this whole explosion happen. But I guess you know, like
18:35
Speaker 1: what's the actual reaction, Like why do you need potassium, nitrogen, charcoal, carbon,
18:41
Speaker 1: and sulfur? Like what's going on? Is something transforming into
18:44
Speaker 1: something else or something breaking apart? What do you need
18:46
Speaker 1: those three ingredients? You start with potassium, nitrate and carbon
18:50
Speaker 1: and sulfur, and then you get out the same bits
18:53
Speaker 1: but arrange it in a different pattern, So you get
18:55
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, you get atmospheric nitrogen, which is into and
18:59
Speaker 1: then you get put passium sulfide. So you end up
19:02
Speaker 1: with the same bits but just rearranged in different molecules
19:05
Speaker 1: in a way that takes less energy. So you've released
19:08
Speaker 1: some of the energy. WHOA, that's a pretty that sounds
19:11
Speaker 1: like a pretty complicated reaction. They're like you put in
19:13
Speaker 1: three things and then three other things come out, but
19:15
Speaker 1: they're totally different. The fire somehow triggers that. Yeah, it's
19:19
Speaker 1: actually a complicated multi stage reaction. Doesn't all happen at once,
19:23
Speaker 1: and it's something people are still sort of studying and
19:26
Speaker 1: trying to optimize, and they've come up recently with more
19:29
Speaker 1: fancy versions of gunpowder or like don't release any smoke.
19:32
Speaker 1: So it's a complicated multi stage reaction. Well, what you
19:35
Speaker 1: mean multistage, Like the first the potassium nitrate reacts with this,
19:38
Speaker 1: and then something else, then the charcoal comes in or
19:41
Speaker 1: what exactly, it's multi steps. You don't have all three
19:44
Speaker 1: things happening at the same time. First you have the
19:46
Speaker 1: potassium nitrate, which breaks down and releases the oxygen, and
19:49
Speaker 1: then that oxygen is crucial for the next stages of
19:52
Speaker 1: the reaction. But I guess you need something to start
19:55
Speaker 1: it right, Like you need that spark. And so when
19:57
Speaker 1: you light up a match, you're burning the stuff in
20:00
Speaker 1: the match, which is creating temperature I guess heat, right,
20:04
Speaker 1: then high kinetic energy things that are moving really fast,
20:08
Speaker 1: and then when you put it close to the gunpowder,
20:10
Speaker 1: that's amount triggers the reaction. Well, these things are in
20:13
Speaker 1: a stable state as is, right, Gunpowder just sitting on
20:15
Speaker 1: the table doesn't give off the energy that's stored in
20:18
Speaker 1: it the same way gasoline doesn't or wood doesn't. But
20:21
Speaker 1: if you can trigger this reaction, if you can get
20:23
Speaker 1: it hot enough to trigger this reaction, you will release
20:26
Speaker 1: some of its internal energy. So it's sort of like
20:28
Speaker 1: a ball trapped on a shelf. You gotta give it
20:30
Speaker 1: a little push so it'll fall off and release all
20:32
Speaker 1: of that potential energy. And so this is all trapped
20:35
Speaker 1: stored inside these chemicals. If you provide some heat to
20:38
Speaker 1: kick it off, then it will release a lot of
20:41
Speaker 1: that internal stored energy, and that release will then trigger
20:44
Speaker 1: more release from the adjacent molecules, so it builds on itself.
20:47
Speaker 1: It's a chain reaction that way, right, And I imagine
20:50
Speaker 1: it's also you need like a certain amount of heat, right,
20:53
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure if it's sitting there out there in
20:55
Speaker 1: the open, there are air molecules hitting it, and some
20:58
Speaker 1: of them are partly hitting it be fast, and it
21:00
Speaker 1: is maybe causing some reactions, but maybe not enough to
21:03
Speaker 1: really get that snowball of rolling exactly, Although you can
21:06
Speaker 1: have that happen naturally from like lightning strikes. Fires can
21:09
Speaker 1: start in the woods from lightning strikes. But you're right,
21:12
Speaker 1: air molecules don't trigger this because they don't deposit enough
21:15
Speaker 1: energy to get over that hump. It's in a stable state,
21:17
Speaker 1: which means, like you perturb it a little bit, it's
21:19
Speaker 1: just gonna go back to hanging out in the molecules
21:21
Speaker 1: it was in. It needs a big push to get
21:24
Speaker 1: it out of its little local stable equilibrium and over
21:27
Speaker 1: the hump, to release a lot of that energy and
21:29
Speaker 1: fall into a different stable equilibrium of these products of
21:32
Speaker 1: the chemical reaction. All right, well, those are the basics
21:35
Speaker 1: of gunpowder. Let's get into how they figure into firecrackers, sparklers,
21:39
Speaker 1: and fireworks. But first let's take a quick break. Al Right,
21:55
Speaker 1: we are lighting up the podcast guy, I guess, and
21:59
Speaker 1: celebrating your life forth here in the US and or
22:02
Speaker 1: whenever you want to listen to this episode, and we're
22:05
Speaker 1: talking about fireworks and gunpowder and how that all works
22:08
Speaker 1: for me. I guess. Physico chemists perspective are re forcing
22:13
Speaker 1: you to be a chemist in this episode, Daniel, as
22:16
Speaker 1: much as that can possibly be. You know, my natural
22:18
Speaker 1: state is thinking about like one fundamental particle maybe interacting
22:22
Speaker 1: with another one. And one of the reasons I didn't
22:24
Speaker 1: end up in chemistry is that it's so many particles
22:27
Speaker 1: to keep track of all at once. It seems to
22:29
Speaker 1: be like impossible to really ever understand what's going on.
22:32
Speaker 1: You always have to zoom out and think about things statistically,
22:35
Speaker 1: which makes me less comfortable. You're like a one thing
22:37
Speaker 1: at a time kind of guy. Yeah, like drill down
22:39
Speaker 1: the fundamental nature and look at it, you know. All right, Well,
22:42
Speaker 1: we talked about gunpowder and how it's a mixture of charcoal, sulfur,
22:46
Speaker 1: and potassium nitrate, and that's somehow when you put a
22:49
Speaker 1: flame to it, it starts a chain reaction that transforms
22:51
Speaker 1: the elements and also I guess releases energy. Now, um,
22:56
Speaker 1: how is this energy released just kinetic energy or photons
22:59
Speaker 1: or what's going Well, the energy is released both as heat, right,
23:02
Speaker 1: because one shell of exploding gunpowder heats up the next
23:06
Speaker 1: one and sets it off. And but I hate you
23:08
Speaker 1: mean just like kinetic energy of the particles, right, Like
23:10
Speaker 1: the molecule breaks apart and the pieces fly off in
23:14
Speaker 1: different directions, and they're flying off with higher speeds. Exactly.
23:17
Speaker 1: That's a good rough idea for what temperature is. What
23:20
Speaker 1: heat is, It's the spedometer of the particles that are
23:23
Speaker 1: inside it, so you release this energy, meaning that instead
23:26
Speaker 1: of being bound into some molecule where you have like
23:29
Speaker 1: springs that are compressed and tightly wound, now you release
23:32
Speaker 1: those particles and they're flying out. The springs have released
23:35
Speaker 1: their energy and they're zooming out and hitting other particles,
23:38
Speaker 1: and that creates a shock wave, right, because you're hitting
23:41
Speaker 1: other particles which then hit other particles. And that's what
23:44
Speaker 1: sound is. Sound is a traveling compression wave. And so
23:48
Speaker 1: as this explodes, it creates pressure in the air and
23:52
Speaker 1: that pressure hits your ear and you hear it. So
23:54
Speaker 1: the reason the firecracker sounds like a boom is because
23:58
Speaker 1: it's a little bomb. It's created this pressure wave which
24:01
Speaker 1: travels out and hits your ear, all right, So that's
24:03
Speaker 1: the band that we hear when when a fire cracker
24:06
Speaker 1: goes off. But what about the flash, Like where does
24:08
Speaker 1: that light come from? That's again just from the energy
24:10
Speaker 1: that's released. Some of it gets converted into sounds, some
24:12
Speaker 1: of it gets converted into heat, and some of it
24:14
Speaker 1: is released as photons, right, And so just like when
24:17
Speaker 1: you're looking at a fire, it's releasing heat, but it's
24:20
Speaker 1: also releasing visible light. You're gonna see some of that
24:22
Speaker 1: with your eyes. Remember, anything that gets hot is going
24:25
Speaker 1: to release photons. It's impossible to warm up without glowing.
24:29
Speaker 1: Everything in physics we can think of as a black
24:31
Speaker 1: body radiator, meaning that the temperature you are determines the
24:35
Speaker 1: frequency in which you glow. So things that get hot
24:38
Speaker 1: enough are going to glow in the visible light. Right.
24:40
Speaker 1: I think we covered this in a previous episode. Like
24:43
Speaker 1: when things are hot, the molecules are moving really fast,
24:46
Speaker 1: and somehow that causes the electrons to drop down levels, right,
24:50
Speaker 1: and then that's what releases the photons. The universe doesn't
24:53
Speaker 1: like to have high energy density, likes to spread that
24:56
Speaker 1: energy out. So if a bunch of molecules with energy,
24:59
Speaker 1: either because there's a tron's have energy, or because the
25:01
Speaker 1: molecules themselves a high kinetic energy, or maybe they have
25:04
Speaker 1: vibrational energy in their bonds, that likes to spread out.
25:08
Speaker 1: So anything that's excited will release that energy in terms
25:11
Speaker 1: of photons, and that's how things are basically glowing. I
25:15
Speaker 1: see when things are excited, they release photons, and an
25:20
Speaker 1: explosion things are super exciting, the way kids get excited
25:23
Speaker 1: in holidays and their faces glow. All right, Well, um,
25:26
Speaker 1: I guess one question I had was how does gunpowder
25:29
Speaker 1: relate to bad poop? Because I remember thinking or hearing
25:33
Speaker 1: about how, you know, originally or maybe to make fireworks
25:36
Speaker 1: or gunpower, you just need like um, bad poop, guana
25:39
Speaker 1: or maybe seagull poop. I think I've heard that too.
25:42
Speaker 1: It requires people used to mind guano because guano has
25:46
Speaker 1: exceptionally high amounts of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium, and so
25:51
Speaker 1: you need that potassium and that nitrogen to make gunpowder.
25:55
Speaker 1: So I mean, gunpowder is not like something you find underground.
25:57
Speaker 1: You don't like mind gunpowder that you mind, you know, salt,
26:01
Speaker 1: for example, You have to put it together the chemical
26:03
Speaker 1: mixture of other various elements. You need to find those
26:06
Speaker 1: ingredients to manufacture gunpowder. The bats basically have concentrated a
26:10
Speaker 1: lot of these things for you and delivered it to
26:12
Speaker 1: you in the form of poop. That's super interesting, right,
26:15
Speaker 1: isn't it Like it's a biological process that actually kind
26:18
Speaker 1: of makes gunpowder, right, meaning like the poop is kind
26:21
Speaker 1: of explosive. Well, they're essential ingredients in gunpowder. It's not
26:25
Speaker 1: like they have really you know, explosive farts or something
26:27
Speaker 1: like that. Well, you don't know the bats that I do,
26:32
Speaker 1: but yeah, these are essential ingredients, and you know, we
26:34
Speaker 1: rely on biological processes all the time to capture energy
26:38
Speaker 1: to produce chemicals that we find important. You know, basically
26:42
Speaker 1: everybody on the planet is eating the results of biological
26:45
Speaker 1: processes that have stripped out energy from the sun and
26:48
Speaker 1: taking carbon dioxide and do this essential chemical processing for us.
26:52
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're all building on top of this huge
26:54
Speaker 1: pyramid of photosynthesis and bath poop production. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, us,
27:00
Speaker 1: when you eat a solid, you're kind of ingesting you know,
27:03
Speaker 1: prepacked energy packets, right, prepacked by another biological being. Yeah, exactly,
27:07
Speaker 1: it's this like pyramid of energy processing and chemical conservation
27:12
Speaker 1: to take that energy and stored it in a useful way.
27:14
Speaker 1: And it's much more economically feasible and easier to just
27:17
Speaker 1: gather this from biological processes than to synthesize this in
27:21
Speaker 1: the laboratory in a pure way. That could be done,
27:23
Speaker 1: but then you have to do the bat's job for them. Yeah, no, thanks,
27:29
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to be, you know, poop for a living.
27:31
Speaker 1: I guess. I think bats eat a lot of fruit, right,
27:34
Speaker 1: so that doesn't sound too bad. There you go. I
27:36
Speaker 1: guess I wouldn't want to, you know, go to that
27:38
Speaker 1: fireworks display featuring fireworks made only from a cartoonist poop.
27:47
Speaker 1: No bats or cartoonists were hurt in the making of
27:49
Speaker 1: this fire But anyways, one thing that's interesting here that
27:53
Speaker 1: you wrote down is that gunpowder and firecrackers and fireworks
27:57
Speaker 1: in general are slow explosives. What is I mean? So
28:00
Speaker 1: the speed at which the explosion happens determines a lot
28:03
Speaker 1: about how useful it is and what it can be
28:05
Speaker 1: used for. T and T and other related chemicals. Those
28:08
Speaker 1: are actually more explosive, and so the speed at which
28:12
Speaker 1: this thing blows up determines whether you're getting like a
28:14
Speaker 1: big shock wave or a bang. And it's interesting that
28:18
Speaker 1: black powder is better for fireworks because it blows up
28:21
Speaker 1: more slowly than dynamite. Yeah, by a lot, right, Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: black powder blows up at like a hundred yards per second,
28:29
Speaker 1: that's the detonation velocity, and dynamite has a velocity of
28:32
Speaker 1: detonation more than a thousand yards per second, so ten
28:35
Speaker 1: times as strong. Yeah. It's super interesting because you know,
28:39
Speaker 1: I think to us as humans that are limited kind
28:41
Speaker 1: of capacity to these to see things and perceive things.
28:45
Speaker 1: You know, to us, they're both just explosions. But I
28:47
Speaker 1: guess if you had like a super duper fast camera,
28:50
Speaker 1: you would see the difference between a T and T
28:52
Speaker 1: explosion and a fireworks explosion, right, Like, one of them
28:55
Speaker 1: would be ten times lower. So does that mean that
28:57
Speaker 1: then firecracker explosions are less dangerous, but they'll still blow
29:01
Speaker 1: up your fingers, or if you put enough of them,
29:03
Speaker 1: they'll still blow up a tank for example. Right, Yeah,
29:06
Speaker 1: they're both explosives, and you definitely don't want to mess
29:08
Speaker 1: around with either of them. They're both definitely dangerous, but
29:11
Speaker 1: they produce a different sort of character of explosion. So
29:14
Speaker 1: you get like a longer duration of the explosion, and
29:16
Speaker 1: I think you get a different mixture of light and
29:19
Speaker 1: sound because the explosion is slower, so I think there's
29:21
Speaker 1: more time for the stuff to heat up. And I
29:23
Speaker 1: guess if it's faster too, it's also more destructive, right, Like,
29:26
Speaker 1: you're concentrating more energy in a smaller place, which is
29:29
Speaker 1: probably better for you know, destroying things. Yeah, when you
29:33
Speaker 1: want to crack open a rock, then you want to
29:35
Speaker 1: convert most of the energy into high pressure waves, whereas
29:38
Speaker 1: with the firework. You don't want to produce as much
29:40
Speaker 1: pressure because you don't want to pop people's ear drums.
29:43
Speaker 1: So you want more the energy to produce bright flashes
29:45
Speaker 1: of light, which requires heating this stuff up. So you
29:47
Speaker 1: actually want to lower explosion velocity so that the stuff
29:51
Speaker 1: actually gets hotter. Interesting. And so that's what a gunpowder is,
29:55
Speaker 1: and that's what a firecracker is. You just take a
29:57
Speaker 1: bunch of gunpowder, put in a little package and I
29:59
Speaker 1: guess how attach a fuse twit, right, which is really
30:02
Speaker 1: just a string, and so when you light up the string,
30:04
Speaker 1: the fire kind of travels along the string and then
30:06
Speaker 1: eventually it hits the gunpowder. And one nice thing about
30:10
Speaker 1: black powder and gunpowder is that it's sort of insensitive
30:13
Speaker 1: to friction. Like if you have a pile of it
30:15
Speaker 1: and it rubs against itself, it doesn't just set itself off,
30:18
Speaker 1: which is good. You wanted to only blow when you
30:20
Speaker 1: want it to blow. And so what that's what the
30:22
Speaker 1: fuse does, is it delivers that first spark of energy
30:25
Speaker 1: to get the reaction going. Right. Oh, I see, well,
30:28
Speaker 1: by friction, I think you mean like dropping it, Like
30:30
Speaker 1: you don't want to drop a firecracker and have it explode.
30:33
Speaker 1: But like I think, if you drop a stick of TNT,
30:36
Speaker 1: it could blow up. Right, Yeah, TNT is much less stable.
30:39
Speaker 1: Gunpowder if it rubs against itself, won't blow up. That.
30:41
Speaker 1: You can blow up gunpowder without a spark, right, you
30:44
Speaker 1: can just use percussion. That's how a gun works, right
30:46
Speaker 1: black powder. Gunpowder is in the back of the bullet,
30:49
Speaker 1: and then the hammer comes back and hits the back
30:51
Speaker 1: of the bullet and that actually sets off the gunpowder.
30:54
Speaker 1: So you can set off gunpowder without a spark. Oh interesting, Well,
30:58
Speaker 1: I think these days and bullets they a little like
31:01
Speaker 1: the back of the bullet has something that causes a spark.
31:03
Speaker 1: But I think maybe you're thinking like way before when
31:06
Speaker 1: they would use like they would literally pour gunpowder into
31:08
Speaker 1: the gun. Then just hitting it, hitting gunpowder makes it ignite. Yea,
31:12
Speaker 1: Some fire and guns just have a hammer, right, there's
31:14
Speaker 1: no spark. You know a lot of those guns huge
31:17
Speaker 1: range of technologies though. All right, well, those are firecrackers
31:20
Speaker 1: that kind of go pop up up, um. But now
31:23
Speaker 1: let's talk about sparklers. I think these are my favorite
31:25
Speaker 1: from when I was a kid. I'm still a fan
31:27
Speaker 1: of sparklers. Sparklers are super fun because you can hold
31:30
Speaker 1: them right. It makes them feel much more immediate. Like
31:32
Speaker 1: a firecracker, you said it in your run, it goes bang.
31:35
Speaker 1: But a sparkler you can hold it. You could wave
31:37
Speaker 1: it around and you can like draw in the air
31:39
Speaker 1: with a light because the impression stays and your retina
31:41
Speaker 1: for a while and also lasts for a while. You know,
31:44
Speaker 1: you can burn for like thirty seconds or a minute.
31:46
Speaker 1: So this are definitely one of my favorite childhood memories. Also, yeah,
31:49
Speaker 1: they're pretty cool. And if you're not familiar, I guess
31:51
Speaker 1: they're like a stick. There's usually like a metal stick
31:54
Speaker 1: and the top half of it is covered in some
31:56
Speaker 1: sort of gray stuff that makes it sort of look
31:59
Speaker 1: like a corn dog. I guess, right, like a great
32:03
Speaker 1: long corn dog. Although you don't know what a sparkler
32:05
Speaker 1: looks like, you probably don't know what a corn dog
32:07
Speaker 1: looks like either. It looks really gross. It does not
32:10
Speaker 1: look like a corn dog. It's like totally gray and metallic.
32:13
Speaker 1: It's completely unappetizing. Oh boy, did I just salt corn dogs?
32:19
Speaker 1: Are you're a big fan of corn dots? It doesn't
32:20
Speaker 1: matter how much mustard you put on that thing, it's
32:22
Speaker 1: not gonna taste good, it's gonna it's gonna sparkle though
32:27
Speaker 1: in your mouth. So the way these works is, um,
32:29
Speaker 1: you take a sparkler and then you light up one end,
32:31
Speaker 1: but it takes it. Sometimes it takes a while to
32:33
Speaker 1: light up, right, Like, it's not like you put the
32:35
Speaker 1: flame to it and it immediately starts sparkling. You kind
32:37
Speaker 1: of have to wait a little bit. It's not like
32:39
Speaker 1: a fuse that immediately goes. You've got to get it
32:42
Speaker 1: like hot enough to really start. And a sparkler is
32:45
Speaker 1: sort of like a slow motion firecracker. Like it's got
32:48
Speaker 1: the same basic material inside of it. Again, it's black
32:51
Speaker 1: powder doing a lot of the work releasing energy. That's
32:54
Speaker 1: like the fuel that powers the sparkler. But then it's
32:57
Speaker 1: got stuff inside of it which sparkles, and all of
33:00
Speaker 1: the stuff that slows down the reaction so it doesn't
33:02
Speaker 1: just like blow your hand off, right, it's sort of
33:05
Speaker 1: diluted in a way, right, Like that's the idea to
33:07
Speaker 1: slow down you do you mix it with other things
33:09
Speaker 1: that don't explode exactly. You modify this mixture of like
33:13
Speaker 1: potassium nitrate and sulfur and charcoal so that you get
33:16
Speaker 1: a slower explosion. Sometimes adding more sulfur or more charcoal
33:20
Speaker 1: reduces how fast the oxygen is released, and so you
33:24
Speaker 1: can tinker with those mixtures to get a different speed
33:26
Speaker 1: of the reaction essentially. And then for the sparkler, you
33:29
Speaker 1: actually mix it with sugar, right like their sugar on
33:32
Speaker 1: that thing. There is sugar in there. That's mostly just
33:34
Speaker 1: to hold it together, to make it like a goop
33:36
Speaker 1: and not just like a powder. But the reason that
33:39
Speaker 1: it's sparkles is sort of weird. They have metal powder
33:42
Speaker 1: in there, like you put aluminum or steel or something
33:45
Speaker 1: in there, and then that steel gets really really hot
33:48
Speaker 1: and it glows for the same reason we talked about earlier.
33:51
Speaker 1: You take metal, you heat it up, it's gonna glow.
33:54
Speaker 1: And so here you have metal powder which gets heated up,
33:58
Speaker 1: and that's what's actually making those little sparkle that shoot out.
34:00
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, that's the as the metal that heats it. Well,
34:04
Speaker 1: if there's a central flame in the middle, right, and
34:08
Speaker 1: then that's the big bright thought that you see in
34:11
Speaker 1: a sparkler. But then there's other things shooting off of it,
34:14
Speaker 1: these sparkles basically, and you're saying the sparkles are metal
34:18
Speaker 1: that's getting super heat up by this central kind of flame.
34:22
Speaker 1: It's basically tiny bullets, and a sparkler is shooting super
34:27
Speaker 1: tiny little pellets of hot metal. It sounds like a
34:29
Speaker 1: terrible idea, right now, give this to kids and let
34:32
Speaker 1: them run around. But these things are so small they
34:34
Speaker 1: burn up quickly and basically vaporize. But if you do
34:37
Speaker 1: put your hand really close to a sparkler, you will
34:39
Speaker 1: feel these tiny little hot pellets hitting your hand. It's
34:42
Speaker 1: not a great idea. Well, what's interesting is sometimes it
34:45
Speaker 1: sort of looks like almost like a snowflake pattern, right,
34:48
Speaker 1: like do You'll see a big stream of sparkle and
34:51
Speaker 1: then that will divide, and then those will then divide
34:54
Speaker 1: in itself, making sort of like this beautiful tree like
34:57
Speaker 1: almost snowflake like pattern. It's sort of like dolls, right.
35:00
Speaker 1: They keep breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, and
35:02
Speaker 1: that's those little bits of metal getting heated up, and
35:05
Speaker 1: if they're big enough, they will split in half before
35:07
Speaker 1: they completely vaporize, and then maybe split it half again.
35:10
Speaker 1: So you get these really cool patterns and their ephemeral. Right,
35:13
Speaker 1: they don't last very long. It all happens very very quickly,
35:16
Speaker 1: but long enough for the pattern to remain in your eye.
35:19
Speaker 1: So it's really a beautiful effect. And I guess why
35:21
Speaker 1: does it need to be metal that heats up like
35:24
Speaker 1: white as metal give off light when it gets heat
35:27
Speaker 1: up more than other things like carbon. That's a good question.
35:30
Speaker 1: I think you use metal because it doesn't burn, right,
35:33
Speaker 1: It just heats up and vaporizes, so like absorbs the
35:36
Speaker 1: energy and then gives it off as light rather than
35:39
Speaker 1: like contributing to the explosion itself. So it's fairly inert
35:43
Speaker 1: that way. Chemically, it's not getting modified, it's just getting
35:45
Speaker 1: heated up and vaporized, all right. Well, and and so
35:49
Speaker 1: you heard it from Daniel, sparkers have sugar in them,
35:52
Speaker 1: so um, don't give him a dry too close to
35:58
Speaker 1: one of your little child. We just give the bad
36:01
Speaker 1: advice here today. Then. But they are super fun and
36:04
Speaker 1: they are super cool, and so the next time you
36:06
Speaker 1: look at one, you know, think about all the processes
36:08
Speaker 1: that are going on in there. Right. Let's get into
36:10
Speaker 1: now how far works, the big ones, the ones that
36:13
Speaker 1: light up the sky and have all these amazing displays
36:16
Speaker 1: and colors. How they work. We'll dive into that, but
36:19
Speaker 1: first let's take another quick break. Al Right, we are
36:34
Speaker 1: celebrating I guess July fourth, Dannel. This episode will come
36:37
Speaker 1: out around July four. Yeah, and all the summer holidays,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know, in France, this bestial day, and it feels
36:44
Speaker 1: like a lot of cultures have a reason to set
36:47
Speaker 1: off fireworks in the summer, right right, Who doesn't love
36:50
Speaker 1: a good explosion? The particle physicist us, well, all right,
36:56
Speaker 1: I won't get into it anymore and explode, Daniel, I'm
37:01
Speaker 1: just trolling. You. Make sure to call it the big
37:05
Speaker 1: smash and put the big bank, since it all means
37:07
Speaker 1: the same to you anyways, Let's be more confusing. Sounds good,
37:10
Speaker 1: let's do how about the small the small smash that
37:14
Speaker 1: needs to be extra extra confusing, the micro smash that
37:19
Speaker 1: started it all, the small smash, formerly known as the
37:23
Speaker 1: big bang. That's what we need to change the name
37:27
Speaker 1: of something everybody already knows the name of now, so
37:29
Speaker 1: that some people can say, actually, it's now called Are
37:35
Speaker 1: you Are you mocking chemists or physicists with that, boy? Physicists.
37:42
Speaker 1: I would never mock chemists, because they're better at making
37:45
Speaker 1: poison gas and bombs than I am. I see, you
37:47
Speaker 1: don't want to lose that chemistry with them. But all right,
37:49
Speaker 1: so now let's get into now fireworks. Now, this is
37:52
Speaker 1: the question we started off at the beginning. So these
37:54
Speaker 1: are the ones that most people think of, you know,
37:56
Speaker 1: July four or Steel Day. They throw these up in
37:59
Speaker 1: this They light up the sky. There's all kinds of
38:02
Speaker 1: colors nowadays there's all kinds of shapes too. Yeah, they're
38:04
Speaker 1: very dramatic. And fireworks are basically a combination of everything
38:08
Speaker 1: we've talked about so far. Their combination of sparklers and
38:11
Speaker 1: firecrackers and then all wrapped together in a little mini rocket.
38:15
Speaker 1: One of the essential components in fireworks are these things
38:18
Speaker 1: called stars, which again are not the burning balls of
38:22
Speaker 1: plasma and the sky. There's something totally different. They're like
38:25
Speaker 1: sparkler like stuff formed into little balls. Oh interesting, you're
38:29
Speaker 1: saying a firework. It's like a bunch of sparklers stuffed
38:32
Speaker 1: in with an explosion. Exactly when you see the fireworks
38:35
Speaker 1: in the sky and you see it's sparkling, it's a
38:38
Speaker 1: sparkler up there. And so the way you make a
38:40
Speaker 1: firework is that you pack a bunch of little balls
38:43
Speaker 1: of sparkler together into a little tube. And then you
38:46
Speaker 1: also fill it with black powder, which sprays all the
38:48
Speaker 1: sparklers out when it explodes, and that's what makes your
38:51
Speaker 1: pattern in the sky. Oh interesting, really, so I guess.
38:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying you should do this, but
38:57
Speaker 1: you could do this. Like if you put a bunch
38:59
Speaker 1: of sparklers in with a firecracker, you can make your
39:01
Speaker 1: own firework kind of. That's what a firework is exactly.
39:04
Speaker 1: It's just sparkler stuff packed in with black powder that
39:07
Speaker 1: was high precision in order to get it to explode
39:10
Speaker 1: in just the right way and at the right time,
39:12
Speaker 1: and then you also have to somehow launch it up
39:14
Speaker 1: into the air. So it's a bit of a complicated construction,
39:17
Speaker 1: but those are the essential ingredients, black powder and sparkler stuff.
39:21
Speaker 1: I see. Well, let's break it down. How does the
39:23
Speaker 1: rocket launching part work. Is it like a rocket rocket? No,
39:27
Speaker 1: it's more like a gun. You have like a steel
39:29
Speaker 1: tube with black powder in the bottom, and then the
39:32
Speaker 1: firework is sitting on top of that. So you light
39:35
Speaker 1: some black powder in the bottom of the tube and
39:37
Speaker 1: that explosion like a firecracker inside of it sets off
39:41
Speaker 1: the firecracker to fly up into the sky and at
39:43
Speaker 1: the same time lights the fuse at the bottom of it.
39:47
Speaker 1: So that's how you launched the thing up. It's just
39:49
Speaker 1: like a little gun. But it's not like a gun. Like,
39:51
Speaker 1: it's not an explosion that propels it upward. Right, It's
39:54
Speaker 1: more like a controlled you know, like a real rocket right. Like.
39:57
Speaker 1: It's not like a big bang. It's like a right
40:01
Speaker 1: like it has to expel the propellant slowly kind of. Well, though,
40:05
Speaker 1: the explosion happens at the bottom of the tube. It's
40:07
Speaker 1: like our mortar, right, and that explosion pushes the firework up.
40:10
Speaker 1: It's not like the firework is burning on its way
40:13
Speaker 1: up and pushing itself up. It's more like it's gotten
40:15
Speaker 1: thrown up. It's not a projectile motion, just from the
40:19
Speaker 1: initial explosion that pushed it out of the tube. A
40:22
Speaker 1: rocket is like continuous burning that's pushing it up, has thrust,
40:26
Speaker 1: but a firework doesn't. It's just like thrown up by
40:28
Speaker 1: this too, more like a mortar. Well, maybe that's some
40:31
Speaker 1: of them, right, I think some of them. How do
40:32
Speaker 1: you sort of a rocket like a thing? Yeah, you
40:35
Speaker 1: can definitely buy some fireworks that you can light off
40:37
Speaker 1: yourself that are like bottle rockets, right, that are propelled
40:41
Speaker 1: by those the kind of I'm thinking about, you know,
40:43
Speaker 1: the big ones you see at the displays, those are
40:45
Speaker 1: almost all just projectiles that are fired up by an
40:48
Speaker 1: initial explosion. But yeah, there are some versions that are
40:51
Speaker 1: like more like rockets that have a continuous explosion. M
40:55
Speaker 1: I see, Well, I guess it's it's gonna be tricky
40:57
Speaker 1: because you want to explode something a rocket something at
41:00
Speaker 1: the bottom, but you don't want it to somehow, you know,
41:03
Speaker 1: burn up your gunpowder and sparklers that are at the
41:06
Speaker 1: front exactly, So they pack it very carefully, and they
41:09
Speaker 1: have like multiple stages, and they have fuses that have
41:12
Speaker 1: time delays, so they have materials that burn at very
41:15
Speaker 1: well known rates. So you light this fuse and you
41:18
Speaker 1: have like four seconds before it gets to the top
41:20
Speaker 1: of the firework and sets off the rest of it.
41:22
Speaker 1: So you're right, it's a very delicately balanced system. Yeah,
41:24
Speaker 1: and it's interesting what you said. You got a time
41:26
Speaker 1: it right, because you want the fireworks to explode and
41:29
Speaker 1: give you all the sparkles like at the very top,
41:32
Speaker 1: not as it's going up or right as soon as
41:34
Speaker 1: it takes off. Yeah, and some of these things have
41:36
Speaker 1: like two or three different stages, so they'll blow up
41:39
Speaker 1: once and then they blow up again at the top,
41:41
Speaker 1: and then on the way down they blow up one
41:42
Speaker 1: more time. So people have gotten really advanced with the
41:45
Speaker 1: technology for how to put these things together to make
41:48
Speaker 1: the most spectacular displays in the sky. But it's all
41:50
Speaker 1: about how you package this stuff so the explosions happen
41:53
Speaker 1: at the right time. Right. They can even make things
41:56
Speaker 1: like a smiley face. Right, they can make a firework
41:58
Speaker 1: that blows up into a smiley face. Yeah, you can.
42:00
Speaker 1: You can make all sorts of crazy shapes. And the
42:02
Speaker 1: way they do this is by very carefully arranging those stars,
42:06
Speaker 1: these pieces of sparkler inside that tube and arranging the
42:11
Speaker 1: black powder around them in just the right way, so
42:13
Speaker 1: when it blows up from the center, it ends up
42:15
Speaker 1: shooting those things out in just that right pattern, because
42:18
Speaker 1: when that black powder goes off, it then sets off
42:20
Speaker 1: the sparklers, which then glow. But it must take a
42:23
Speaker 1: lot of experimentation exactly how to arrange those stars inside
42:27
Speaker 1: the firework to give you that reaction. I imagine they
42:29
Speaker 1: must fail a lot that or they've done some really
42:32
Speaker 1: complicated computer simulations to figure out exactly how to build
42:35
Speaker 1: these things interesting? What do you think it is? Well,
42:38
Speaker 1: I think these things have been around for a lot
42:40
Speaker 1: longer than fancy computers, so initially it must have just
42:42
Speaker 1: been trial and error. You know, people like have an
42:45
Speaker 1: artistic skill at this, you know, coming up with clever
42:48
Speaker 1: things that you can do with your limited ability to
42:50
Speaker 1: arrange the stars inside the fireworks, and then people being
42:54
Speaker 1: creative and discovering new stuff these days. I bet they
42:57
Speaker 1: could use computers, but I'm not sure if anybody's doing that. Yeah,
43:00
Speaker 1: I guess you. You know, to get a circle, for example,
43:02
Speaker 1: for a smile of phase, you just kind of arranged
43:04
Speaker 1: the sparklers a circle around your explosion, right, your explosive,
43:08
Speaker 1: and then when they blows up, it will come out
43:10
Speaker 1: in the circle. And if what you want is a heart,
43:13
Speaker 1: then you move some of those a little bit further
43:14
Speaker 1: away and some of those a little closer in so
43:16
Speaker 1: they burn up sooner. And some of these things are
43:19
Speaker 1: not like a circle or a heart, they're like a
43:21
Speaker 1: big flower, like a chrysanthemum, right, and from that you
43:24
Speaker 1: just have like stars everywhere, all right, So then how
43:26
Speaker 1: do they how do the colors work? How do you
43:28
Speaker 1: get different colors of sparklers, So the colors come from
43:32
Speaker 1: the different kinds of metal inside the sparkler. Remember the
43:35
Speaker 1: reason the sparkler sparkle is because you have metal powder.
43:38
Speaker 1: That metal gets really hot and then it glows. But
43:41
Speaker 1: these metals are made of different elements, so they tend
43:44
Speaker 1: to glow at different frequencies because these metals have different
43:46
Speaker 1: energy levels that they like to release photons at. So
43:49
Speaker 1: different kinds of metals will glow in different colors. And
43:53
Speaker 1: you know, for example, if you sprinkle copper powder into
43:55
Speaker 1: a flame, the flame turns green, and so different metals
43:59
Speaker 1: give you different colors. Where does that come from? I guess?
44:02
Speaker 1: I guess because when it's when the photon comes out
44:05
Speaker 1: of the metal, that comes with a specific frequency which
44:08
Speaker 1: is related to its energy. Just like if you look
44:11
Speaker 1: at a star, you can tell what it's made out
44:13
Speaker 1: of based on the frequency of light that's coming to
44:16
Speaker 1: you from the star. And that's because different elements glow
44:19
Speaker 1: with different fingerprints, and that comes from the energy levels
44:23
Speaker 1: of the electrons going around the atom and also in
44:25
Speaker 1: more complicated situations, from rotational or vibrational modes of a molecule.
44:30
Speaker 1: But usually it's just from the energy levels of the atom,
44:32
Speaker 1: and those are all different for different elements, and so
44:35
Speaker 1: you get different mixtures of colors for different elements. So,
44:38
Speaker 1: for example, if I wanted an orange fire work, what
44:40
Speaker 1: would I use? Then you'd use calcium. Calcium. Oh, that's
44:44
Speaker 1: a metal, right, And these things don't have to be metals, right,
44:48
Speaker 1: They just have to be elements that can accept heat
44:50
Speaker 1: and not participate in the reaction. What about like red red?
44:55
Speaker 1: You can either use lithium, which is going to give
44:58
Speaker 1: you like a medium red or strawn ty them for
45:00
Speaker 1: like a really intense red col What what are some
45:03
Speaker 1: other colors? So you can get like yellow from sodium
45:06
Speaker 1: or green from barium. Copper actually gives you more of
45:09
Speaker 1: a blue than a green. You can get violet from
45:12
Speaker 1: potassium or rubidium. You can even get gold colors from
45:16
Speaker 1: charcoal or iron. Things like aluminum or titanium tend to
45:20
Speaker 1: give you white. So you have a whole palette to
45:22
Speaker 1: play with if you're the person designing these fireworks. Interesting,
45:25
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're painting with materials, right, And a
45:29
Speaker 1: lot of these things are made sort of by hand,
45:32
Speaker 1: like they are these fireworks masters that pack these things
45:35
Speaker 1: together and very carefully mix the ingredients to get exactly
45:39
Speaker 1: what they want, you know, magnesium or aluminum or whatever.
45:43
Speaker 1: And so they tend to make these things sort of
45:45
Speaker 1: by hand and cut them into these pieces. And that's
45:47
Speaker 1: why some of these things are very expensive because they're
45:49
Speaker 1: like fabricated by artisans whoa it's like organic, you know,
45:54
Speaker 1: artisan works. Somebody with like a wax mustache and a
45:59
Speaker 1: long beard and make this out in Brooklyn warehouse. Right now,
46:01
Speaker 1: you're you're assuming they're hipsters for a word, hipsters, But
46:06
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's a stressful job, you know, dealing
46:08
Speaker 1: with explosives because you're you're sort of crafting this thing
46:10
Speaker 1: by hand of something that can explode at any moment.
46:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure they have good insurance. I don't know if
46:17
Speaker 1: having good insurance, but it made me want to do
46:21
Speaker 1: something dangerous. It's almost the opposite. If you need good
46:24
Speaker 1: insurance or something, maybe you should be doing it. Maybe not.
46:28
Speaker 1: But you know how it is, everybody gets inspired by
46:30
Speaker 1: something different, and for some folks this must be like
46:32
Speaker 1: a deep passion. You know. The mixture of chemistry and
46:35
Speaker 1: artistry together probably really satisfying for a lot of folks.
46:38
Speaker 1: And then you get to display your works. Everybody goes, oh, right,
46:42
Speaker 1: almost everybody loves fireworks, so you must be very popular.
46:45
Speaker 1: That's right, almost everybody except you, I guess. But what
46:48
Speaker 1: about the ones that you know? Sometimes you see these
46:50
Speaker 1: like they explode and then the little bits explode themselves,
46:54
Speaker 1: you know, like like a multi tier explosion almost like
46:57
Speaker 1: it explodes and it gets us sparkles, but then the
47:00
Speaker 1: sparkles after a little bit, explode themselves into other colors.
47:03
Speaker 1: How do they do that? Yeah, that's all in the packaging.
47:06
Speaker 1: You can make like little cardboard packages that have sparklers
47:08
Speaker 1: inside them, and they're surrounded by sparklers, and so initially
47:12
Speaker 1: the outside sparklers go and then when those burn after
47:14
Speaker 1: a while, they heat up what's inside, which can then burn.
47:17
Speaker 1: So it's all about timing these multi stage reactions. You
47:20
Speaker 1: do that based on how you're packaging this firework right, right,
47:23
Speaker 1: And something interesting you just said is that these things
47:25
Speaker 1: are made out of cardboard, right, Like you kind of
47:28
Speaker 1: have to make him out of materials that burn up, right, Like,
47:31
Speaker 1: you can't make a firework out of put like a
47:33
Speaker 1: steel to or a steel plate on it, because that
47:36
Speaker 1: thing's gonna fall back down and maybe hurt somebody. Everything
47:38
Speaker 1: has to be made out of paper, and it has
47:40
Speaker 1: to be the right strength to hold the stuff together,
47:42
Speaker 1: but not so strong that it can't explode. Right, And
47:45
Speaker 1: so cardboard and paper is actually just about the perfect strength. Wow,
47:48
Speaker 1: so you need to be like a paper artisan too. Yeah.
47:52
Speaker 1: I don't think we're like three D printing fireworks or anything,
47:56
Speaker 1: but not yet. You just am up with an interesting
48:00
Speaker 1: idea there. I wonder if you can get more precise
48:02
Speaker 1: sculptures if you if you do three D print them. Yeah,
48:05
Speaker 1: you might be able to guide the sparklers in exactly
48:07
Speaker 1: the right direction. You could have like tubes or sparkler
48:10
Speaker 1: guides or something that they get them to do crazy stuff.
48:13
Speaker 1: I think three D printing and computer modeling probably the
48:16
Speaker 1: future of artisanal fireworks. Wow. Yeah, you could have like
48:20
Speaker 1: a firework that explodes into a photo of your face
48:23
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, or the cat video that everybody's been
48:26
Speaker 1: wanting and waiting for. Oh my gosh, that would be
48:29
Speaker 1: next level, like animated fireworks. Can you imagine like fireworks
48:33
Speaker 1: and move? Yeah, that would be pretty incredible. It sounds
48:36
Speaker 1: like something out of Harry Potter. Maybe. Yeah, four D fireworks, Well,
48:39
Speaker 1: nowadays it kind of seems like the future of these
48:41
Speaker 1: displays that are drones. They're using drones more and more
48:44
Speaker 1: and they're almost kind of as and you can't do
48:46
Speaker 1: cat videos with drones. Yeah, you actually can, and they're
48:49
Speaker 1: not explosive and they don't release toxic chemicals into the
48:52
Speaker 1: air and nobody gets blown up. So drones are pretty
48:55
Speaker 1: nice alternative, or like the green alternative to artisanal organic
48:59
Speaker 1: fire works. They got out greened. And I love a
49:03
Speaker 1: fireworks display like anybody else. The thing that I wonder
49:06
Speaker 1: sometimes when I watch fireworks displace is all those people
49:08
Speaker 1: taking videos of fireworkers place. What was wondering, like, what
49:12
Speaker 1: percentage of those videos is anybody ever watching? You can
49:16
Speaker 1: ask about any video ever taken. Then you'll you take
49:20
Speaker 1: a video of your kid eating a pizza slice. You
49:23
Speaker 1: know you're not gonna watching that later, but you want
49:25
Speaker 1: to capture the moment. I do go back and watch
49:28
Speaker 1: silly videos of everyday moments of my kids back when
49:31
Speaker 1: they were really young, and I think, oh, that's nice
49:33
Speaker 1: to get transported back to that day. You remember what
49:36
Speaker 1: they were like. But I don't watch fireworks videos, you know,
49:39
Speaker 1: with nobody in them, and go, oh, yeah, I remember
49:41
Speaker 1: that explosion. That was really cool. M Well that's because
49:44
Speaker 1: your firework scrub, Daniel. Nobody would explain you to you
49:49
Speaker 1: watch something it's something you don't like. Fac More people
49:53
Speaker 1: would probably say oh to that video than to your
49:55
Speaker 1: kids eating pizza. Honestly, if I invited people over there,
49:58
Speaker 1: probably rather see a fireworks video than an old video
50:01
Speaker 1: of my kids eating pizza. Especially your kids didn't want
50:03
Speaker 1: to see that stuff. All right, Well, that was an
50:06
Speaker 1: explosive conversation, full of sparkling conversation. Yeah, and we hope
50:10
Speaker 1: that illuminated for you how people have been using physics
50:14
Speaker 1: and chemistry to brighten up their lives and their celebrations
50:17
Speaker 1: even before they understood how it worked. And I hope
50:19
Speaker 1: that confluence of physics and chemistry I really add a
50:22
Speaker 1: little pop to your day there for night. And I
50:25
Speaker 1: hope my distaste for fireworks it doesn't blow up your experience.
50:28
Speaker 1: What's not to like, Daniel? They're big, they're explosive, and
50:31
Speaker 1: they're bright, sort of like the universe, right, the big smash?
50:36
Speaker 1: All right, I give up, you win? Yes? All right? Well,
50:40
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, and
50:42
Speaker 1: we hope the next time you look up at the
50:44
Speaker 1: fireworks display, you kind of think about all of the
50:46
Speaker 1: physics and chemistry arts that's going on than all the
50:49
Speaker 1: artisanal skill that went into making those fireworks. And have
50:52
Speaker 1: a happy summer fireworks season everybody, and stay safe. Take
50:55
Speaker 1: a video and send it to Daniel Ramp to enjoy it.
50:59
Speaker 1: I'll d them all together and put them on my
51:01
Speaker 1: website for somebody to download and watch. Twelve hours of fireworks.
51:05
Speaker 1: That does sound pretty good. I think it's called the screensaver.
51:09
Speaker 1: Maybe I think they invented that already. Anyways, thanks for
51:12
Speaker 1: joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening, and
51:22
Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a
51:25
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast for my
51:28
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
51:32
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Ye