Applied Science - 2018-07-16
Why is a candle flame repelled by magnets? It turns out to be a combination of diamagnetic soot particles and hot gas. Dr. Faraday on the diamagnetic condition: https://books.google.com/books?id=Shc8boMnrBoC&pg=RA3-PA406&lpg=RA3-PA406#v=onepage&q&f=false On Flame and Gases: https://books.google.com/books?id=D8NAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187#v=onepage&q&f=false I should have mentioned in the video that the exhaust from a flame will be oxygen-poor, thus also making it more diamagnetic than normal air. Air is a mixture of nitrogen (diamagnetic) and oxygen (paramagnetic). Removing the oxygen will make the resulting gas more diamagnetic. https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Some flames are actually considered to be a plasma. However, the degree of ionization in most flames is still low compared to other examples of plasma; such as an arc which still have a relatively low degree of ionization. If you apply a high voltage to a flame instead of a magnet you will generate an "ion wind" and have a similar effect to what you are seeing.
The wax candle produces more soot than the methanol flame and the soot is easy to ionize in the flame, that is why the effect is more pronounced with the wax candle. Also, some wicks have metal in them which might contribute as well (i'm not sure if this was the case for your candle). If you were to repeat the experiment with a pure hydrogen flame you would see almost no effect, because hydrogen flames produce practically no ions. Flame ionization detectors work on the principal that hydrocarbon flames produce ions in proportion to the number of carbon atoms in the hydrocarbon (which is still an unexplained phenomena funny enough).
Even though this effect is almost certainly due to the flame ions, it is still not a completely well understood phenomena and there is still much to learn!
Also, there is a good book that explore this topic by Weinberg entitled, "Electrical Aspects of Combustion." (https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Aspects-Combustion-Weinberg-Lawton/dp/B0037F75IK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531716710&sr=1-1&keywords=electrical+aspects+of+combustion)
Thanks for the great video! Hope to see more like this!
How is an FID unexplained? What specifically is not known? I use these daily and could experiment while i had off time with the equipment if someone had any suggestions
Have we considered the possibility that the whole universe might be described by electric effect?
Tesla certainly thought something similar.
Electric Universe, Thunderbolts Project
ALL flames are considered a form of plasma - giving it a new name doesn't change it's properties though - just semantics
So it's breeching hydrogen from water and creating plasma through electricity which is nothing more than frequency and ressonence correct? Graphite adds to effect like a spark plug and graphite or platinum, yes?
@random person room temp fission coldfission think piston shrimp and implossion cavitation. Water has memory as does crystal. Giza pyra- mid fire in the middle.
What if you suspended a piece of Dry Ice above the electromagnet poles? It might be easier to see the C02 stream flowing down.
Have you considered using schlieren imaging to get a better look at how the air currents are affected by the magnets? Might give a more accurate view of what's going on. Would hopefully see the hot air be suddely affected.
Also with actual fire there's a good chance the charges in the ionized gas molecules play a large role. But the just hot air thing is super weird. Great video!
This!^ The gas is glowing, that means it's ionized and we know plasma is super diamagnetic. I don't know if it's technically a plasma but, it's experiencing stimulated emission which would seem to me to indicate it's ionized enough to behave like one...
when thinking of magnetism and thermodynamics I was reminded of quantum locking
@Jay Last as in flux pinning?
Liquid oxygen might be somewhat magnetic. Maybe oxygen gas is too, you should consider that if you pursue these experiment
@Nicolas Sicard - Personne n'en parle Not a bad thought but, these are atmospheric fires - if anything, it would be less paramagnetic unless co2 is diamagnetic. I didnt pay attention to the hot air alone experiment but it indicates warm air has different magnetic properties than cold air.
You can make a Schlieren imaging setup to see the flow of the hot air more easily. You may even be able to get away with simply shining a flashlight on it and observing the shadow if the index of refraction of the hot air is sufficiently different than the ambient air.
You need to play with schlieren photography to capture the hot airstreem deflection.
+1! great suggestion.
That would probably show what's happening even better than the infrared camera setup. Great idea Kevin!
I mean the guy just did like 20 experiments though
^dislikes effort and doesnt care about reality
Wei Zhao how many experiments did you publish though?
This is the best fundamental science channel in existence anywhere. I wish this series would continue! The fundamental physics effects on luminous gasses and spectra are so much more interesting than just the magnet designs alone! A correction at 3:50, you aren't experimenting with the "smoke" here (ie. diamagnetic carbon/soot particles) but rather the paraffin vapor , this was established by Faraday in his experiments on a candle flame in the 19th century at the Royal Institution whereby he relit the candle by igniting the flammable paraffin vapor trail in air some distance away from the wick. Also I don't see anyone else having mentioned it yet, but Derek Muller demonstrated this exact same thing with the vapor in 2012 but with electric fields at a museum in Paris where the French call the experiment "le papillon". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7_8Gc_Llr8
Trying to speak more precisely, it is not paraffin vapor too. It is paraffin mist.
That is correct. If one looks very closely at the thing immediately after blowing the candle out you can see a clear region just above the hot wick where the invisible true paraffin vapor is present and a millimeter or so above that is where the white mist begins to appear. I suspect the method of electric charge accumulation on the mist droplets (as proven by this and Muller's demonstration) is not thermal in nature as Tech Ingredients here surmises the flame ionization itself is, since the wick producing the vapor/mist is barely glowing incandescent red and the Draper point is only ~500-600C, but rather that the mechanism of charge accumulation involves some kind of vapor condensation charging, perhaps somehow related to triboelectric charging. There is so much interesting undiscovered physics lying just below the surface of our everyday mundane experiences.
I always thought the relighting effect was due to incomplete combustion products (soot, carbon monoxide, etc.) in the smoke, rather than vaporized or atomized paraffin.
Great video thanks. You should try with smoke in the bubble.
Yeah, maybe the bubble is rotating faster.
Could it have anything to do with the ions in the flame?
If the flame material is plasma, then the flame has free ions (not electrically neutral molecules) which are affected by the Lorentz force F=qvB. The ions would follow helicoidal paths around the field lines, so they'd be crashing into the sides of the apparatus instead of going up, as observed. Note the net current should actually be zero, since the velocities are isotropically distributed to begin with -- the ions initially going left will spiral to the left, the ones going right will spiral right. Plasma magnetic interaction is notably the basis for magnetic confinement fusion. I'm not sure how to test this hypothesis -- perhaps you could apply a voltage across the flame and measure the resulting current? (which would greatly increase with mobile ions)
Gustavo Ramires -- interesting. But wouldn't the helical flow cause a net reduction in the vertical speed. This would act to slow down the flame and therefore make it look smaller?
Gustavo Ramires I recall that flames are known to conduct electricity - https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/45105/does-fire-conduct-electricity-why
@Gustavo Ramires "spark bang buzz and other cool stuff" website details some DIY experiments they did using flames, instead of rarified gases, to create devices functionally equivalent to thermonic rectifiers, triode etc. Also provides photos of curve tracers ran on devices.. Which would appear to provide info on current v voltage re flames.
@nick caruso thanks nasa jet propultion labs should consider using this invention to help booster type propulsors , wow
Is a flame made of plasma? Because if it is, plasma is electrically conducting and effected magnetically. So that could be another cause, if my assumptions are correct?
Well tbh you can curve light with a magnet, any light actually. Let's say you got a flashlight, radius of the cone is 60°. With the right magnet you can make the cone go into a curve even bending/going around things as if you would reflect it with a mirror. So this is what I'd like to know when I said light itself is being affected by a magnetic field since it actually is the MF and not the magnet itself bending the light, especially on the edges of a magnet the force is stronger there. Sadly there is not much information or official experiments about that openly visible. But thanks for your elaboration I appreciate your effort about the flame.
Mandernach Luca “current flow” isn’t likely the best term for what’s going on. The flame is weakly ionized ( in some parts) and so exhibits a degree of permeability. Because it very low mass a very noticeable disturbance is observed when a strong magnetic field is present. If the field were modulated, it might make a better show of it.
Flame must be plasma. For example, if you create nitrogen dioxide using a high voltage electric arc, it's the same principle as when car engines produce CO, CO2 and NO2 (which are originated from high temperatures alone).
If a flame of any kind produces NO2, then it's plasma.
Ok, if we consider a flame to be a plasma (therefore capable of conducting electricity), then wouldn't a magnetic field cause current flow through the flame (analagous to Eddy currents) by means of induction? And if we do have such a current flow within the flame, shouldn't the flame naturally be repulsed by the magnet? Copper in motion around a magnetic field will slow down due to these Eddy currents being generated within the copper (the effect being that the copper becomes magnetic itself; for a long as the Eddy currents are present, a consequential magnetic field gets generated in the copper, causing a slowing down of its motion, as it's nascent magnetic field competes with the magnet's magnetic field).
I see the motion of the flame having a similar cause as the slowing down of the copper.
When I was a kid I tried putting the flame from the hand held propane blow torch onto the grids in an electric bug light zapper.
Buggers alive! I was shocked when that electric current traversed the flame and then me!
I can tell you honestly that I tried it exactly once. Not twice.
I don't know the cause, but I know flames are surprisingly electrically conductive. As others have said, this property is very commonly used in electric furnaces to detect if the flame has gone out. I've seen it in many furnaces I've had apart.
Maybe you can try Schlieren Imaging with magnets to see the effect better.
You put your gas bubble in the very center of your magnet, where the field is uniform. If you want to produce a force on the bubble you should put it at the edge of the pole where the field is inhomogenous.
I like your sophisticated contactor for switching the magnet.
It's realy painful to watch him arcing the contacts.
I also noted that. I had a good laugh about that. It is called expedience.
the coils moving as the current switches on and off is interesting as well
Great tests! Very interesting. Love the EM setup.
try using a schlieren setup to film the hot air
Nice experiments. I was hoping that you would have a resolution to this question at the end of the video.
You may have overlooked the impact of the Krasnow Effect: super cool video and its localized effect on spacetime.
You can't make videos while watching others, get back to work.
+This Old Tony
what is the Krasnow Effect I looked it up and all I could find was physcoligy stuff
krasnow?
His last name
Very good comment, old tony!
The smoke from an extinguished candle (mostly) isn't smoke, it's paraffin vapour...
I think it's a mixture. If you look at a wick just as it's blown out you will see an ember glowing on the wick for a second or two
Not just vapour, the visible component is a "smoke" of recondensed paraffin liquid - or would that be called paraffin steam? Maybe an experiment with liquid paraffin is worth checking?
Exactly. A good way to demonstrate this is to use a lighter to ignite the gaseous wax. You can actually relight a candle from a foot away.
You need to cool your electromagnet with liquid nitrogen for maximum power
Liquid helium is waay better.
Except that cryogenic temperatures might make the magnet core brittle unless its specially formulated - although the prospect of superconducting windings is alluring, liquid helium might allow that, but not easy to achieve!
I love your monotone voice describing high-end scientific things. Hey guys I got a electron microscope or hey guys I did some amazing optic things and now this lovely magnetic show
It's not monotone at all! In the spirit of this channel I feel I should produce a spectrograph clearly showing fundamental pitch variation but I am too lazy.
Said the guy with 1 subscriber :(
Those are some nice electromagnets. You can see the coils contracting when you connect them.
Of all the ridiculous things he has in his shop he's blown my mind with a candle and magnet
New Applied Science video means this had been a great weekend!
For understand what magnetism is, read http://milesmathis.com/
plasma in the flame is probably also responding to the magnetic field
and great video btw. thx and keep up the good work !
Yes, my thought exactly. stuff becomes ionized, thus you have free charged particles that react to magnetic field.
Do you still work for googleX I feel like you do
Applied Science : Cool! I'm a research engineer working on similar instruments, though we target the animal & plant markets instead of humans. Your channel reminds me of work - lots of creative thinking to figure out what experiment is worth running next. The measurements don't scare me nearly as much as the implicit decisions of what to NOT measure whenever we decide what to measure.
According to their website, they're really good at comparing the size of objects to M&M's®... And probably a lot of other important, life-saving projects.
♪Verily, Verily, Verily, Verily, life is but a meme♫
Thanks so much for your comment! I worked in West Campus when I was in Mountain View, so I only rarely went to the BBQ cafe -- I think I remember the exact visit based on the time frame. If it makes you feel any better, I've honestly had the same reaction when thinking about talking to someone I've only seen/heard about via the internet. Being a non-social person, I usually chicken out as well! It's really interesting how the medium itself changes how people interact. I'm really pretty normal in person. :)
This youtube channel has turned out to be a pretty important part of my life, which is good since I have a pretty unconventional existence, and I'm not sure where I'd be without it. It's great to know that other folks enjoy this kind of niche content, and since I already have a day job, I don't have to worry about growing the channel quickly, etc. I make videos that I think are interesting from my own point of view, and it will stay that way for a long time.
Also, 42 is not old! Going through new employee orientation at Google will make someone who is 32 feel pretty old. No joke!
I had the same reaction to Destin Sandlin in my university cafeteria. I did end up saying a brief hello in the hallway one day though.
Why does the plasma of a candle generated in a microwave move as the magnetic field affects it? to be generated?
Next video is on the magneto ja?
Brace yourself:
Free energy comments are coming
My theory: a flame is plasma. In plasma the electrons are no more tightly coupled to their atoms. As a result it reacts to magnetic fields.
Interesting I do a lot of fire walking before I walk I increase my vibration ie my magnetic field as a result I feel very little heat on the Fire when I walk across. I believe you nailed it, the reason I can do that is because of magnetism
Thank you brother keep up the great work
This is the first video of yours that I've watched, absolutely amazing! Instant sub and notification, going to go binge some more.
Maybe the ions in the flame create an electric current that creates a magnetic field which is repelled by the magnet? The Lorentz force related process perhaps
I just tried this with a tealight and two hard disk magnets. It works! So cool. :)
I love science ❤
ok..
^
Personally my first thought was that it's due to the ions in the flame, since fire is plasma afaik. (No expert though, so there's probably a lot of things I'm not taking into account here).
Flame is essentially plasma. Plasma is ionized gas. Ionized gas react to magnetic field and electric fields .have you considered that?
This is why I love this channel, just the documentation of investigation, exploring all the 'what about's Never change.
The smoke you showed was actually wax so it couldn't have been just diamagnetic effects of carbon.
I thought the "smoke" thats released when the candle is extinguished is actually vaporized wax? (From https://youtu.be/LZjfoJmOt1I)
5:26 smiley on bubble 🙂
When you think you're smart and then watch videos from this guy who's awesome and you realized actually you're dumb 😁
could it be that the chemical reaction produces energy and that energy has some magnetic filds that react to the magnets
Awesome Ben! Fascinating! I want to know more! :D
This a pretty incredible discovery, so many experiments to do with this!
Love your videos! Keep up the good work. Its amazing what everyone can learn on youtube.
wow, more of this please, very interesting :)
Great video as always! I’m looking forward to the next one.
Great work! Love the way you continue to build experiments to test your hypotheses and show your negative result; most people remove those but they are educational as well
Hi, I would love to see you use schlieren imaging to flat out right see the air/gases move between the magnets, would be good for more info on what might be going on
Thanks for the video. Amazing, as always.
You have a conductor (flame generally has enough ionization for that) in a magnetic field, which is why the effect is observable for methanol flame as well.
Tech Ingredients - 2018-07-16
Although a candle flame (or a methanol flame) is not hot enough to ionize all the particles flowing between the poles of the magnet. There will be a small percentage of these particles that do ionize due to the statistical nature of the thermal distribution. Gas powered MHD generators benefit from this. Potassium has one of the lowest thermal ionization temperatures and is much more available than cesium. It might be interesting to see if seeding the flame with potassium carbonate would enhance the effect. By the way, very nice video!
Contango1000 - 2018-12-17
We are So bringing this experiment to ISS! Anyone with me? Flames do behave odd in space due to lack of gravity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxxqCLxxY3M) but this seem different.
Early Wynn - 2018-12-22
Would be interesting if you could build a Refridgerator similar to a Pulse-Tube Refrigerator with this method without moving Parts?! Maybe it could even be cost-effective over a magnetic cooling with expensive Gadolinium compounds.
ACTSRevolution - 2018-12-22
I don't understand all the comments here about whether there is ionization in the flame. If it gives off light, then it is ionized. This is the only way any fluid exposed to ground can be magnetically deflected.
Dylan Davies - 2019-02-15
Veritasium actually kinda did a video on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7_8Gc_Llr8, candle flames, and even the soot streams seem strongly influenced by an applied electric field, there is a certain (low) concentration of ions in air, produced by things such as radioactivity and cosmic rays. IIRC this is actually how a spark occurs- the electric field accelerates ions that are already in the air which collide with the air and produce more in a sort of cascade, it's not neccessarily able to produce its own ions de novo.
The ions that are already in the air move at a speed proportional to the root of the temperature, so are deflected more, however the density should be smaller by a factor of T, so perhaps it is the regular air responding stronger to the magnetic field and barring entry to the flame?
antigen4 - 2019-05-29
chad - all flames are 'plasma' bearing