I'm curious what exactly causes the purple flash.. Sorry Im not a science major or anything so I'm totally clueless to all that but I am interested to know how and what elements and why the colour purple comes out of that explosion..
If you want to know more about this particular reaction here is a longer video that explains what happens.
Link to the Video (High speed camera reveals why sodium explodes!) This video doesn't really go into why the purple flash is there, but it's extremely interesting. I had probably watched it a bunch of times in its entirety when it came out.
I can theorize as to why there is a purple flash, but I'm not a scientist myself, I've got years of physics and chemistry I need to understand.
The amperage generated during the coulomb explosion is gigantic so it's possible that the color is due to sparking electricity.
You can look up underwater electric sparks and cycle the videos frame by frame and you'll see a similar color.
To understand this I would try and ask Thunderf00t over and over until he answers or look through his videos to see if he went into it, starting with the videos related to alkali metals and water explosions.
These arguments always make me laugh. "How can global warming be real when it's snowing outside?"
That one with climate change just kills me. It's interesting to note that one can very easily do the experiments on greenhouse gases with equipment you can get your hands on very cheaply.
The experiment demo from the 1850s (I think a woman named Eunice came up with it) was literally comparing a flask of Nitrogen (most like the atmosphere) to a flash of Oxygen (again big part of the atmosphere) to a flash of CO2, all left out in the sun.
The flask of CO2 got hotter because it trapped more heat.
You could literally get some big glass bottles or aquariums and then seal them shut, burn a few matches or sake up some soda or just add some co2 from a carbonation machine or from an airsoft pistol.
Then stick some thermometers in there. And that's it.
Then again, you could just visit a park that has glaciers on it and look at them shrinking year after year. You could visit many of them and you'd find that most glaciers are retreating. You might find a couple of exceptions but if 100 are shrinking and 5 are growing you pretty much know here we are heading.
You can then measure the sea level (which is probably more challenging) and find that the sea level is increasing at a rate of 3mm per year.
I can actually notice the sea level rise where I live because I'm right on the water. The highest tides of the year reach higher places then they used to and when air blows the water in it can get extreme. The difference isn't noticeable year to year but you can almost see it if you've been here long enough.
I wonder what idiots think about that? Probably that the sea level is rising because someone left their garden hose on or something. Or maybe that god is drooling? I mean if man was created in His image than it's very likely that God's a drooler.
