Friends, it’s been a busy year, and I’m going to take break from blogging for a week or so.
I am really grateful to everyone who reads this blog. I would probably be writing it whether or not you were reading it because writing helps me to clarify my thoughts. But I find the idea that anyone reads what I have written very moving.
So, thank you, and best wishes to you and yours for 2023.
Anyway…
The other day I clicked back through the 920 articles I have written since 2008 and came across this slightly chaotic video of a talk I gave at NPL in 2017 on the physics of candles.
And re-watching it I was amused and distracted, and so I thought I would re-post it in case you too might be amused or distracted!
Candles really are astounding! For example:
- Did you know that wax in bulk is not flammable?
- Did you know the temperature of a candle flame?
- Did you know that a candle stores 8 times more energy than a stick of dynamite?
If would like to access some of the fancy PowerPoint™ animations you can download the PowerPoint file here.
The highlight of the talk is using a candle to power a thermo-electric generator, which in turn powers a USB port, which in turn powers a torch, which is brighter than the candle.
And by the way, here is the slow-motion candle-relighting movie that is embedded in the PowerPoint but which doesn’t show up well in the lecture theatre view.
Thanks again to Brian Madzima for the videography and editing, and Nikita Mezhnyakov for the photograph.