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The title says it all: this blog features physics videos found everywhere on the web: animations, demonstrations, lectures, documentaries.
Please go here if you want to suggest other nice physics videos, and here if I mistakingly infringed your copyrights. If you understand French, you'll find a huge selection of physics videos in French in my other blog Vidéos de Physique.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Electric Flame

Is a flame really a plasma? Well it depends on your definition of plasma, but there are certainly ions in a flame, formed as molecules collide with each other at high speed, sometimes knocking electrons off of their atoms. Special thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte for helping me perform this experiment. Using tens of thousands of volts on two metal plates, we created a strong electric field around the plasma. This pulled positive ions in one direction and negative ions in the other direction elongating the flame horizontally and causing it to flicker like a "papillon" (butterfly). Then we showed that much longer sparks can be made through the flame than through air since the ions increase the conductivity.

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