I posted an entry into Alan Alda's Flame Challenge
I thought I'd share it with you. It's not terrible, it's not great. It didn't even get an honorable mention! Go check out the website for the specifics. But the basic rules were: Explain what 'flame" is, to an 11 year old Alan Alda.
Here's my submission:
Dear Alan,
Thank you so much for asking me what a flame is!
Flame, in my understanding, could best be described like this:
Hot, bright, and hungry.
Almost like a living thing, flame needs air, heat, and food (which we would call fuel, like for a car)
When those three things come together in the right amounts, "Flame" happens.
You could also call it a fire.
The flame eats the fuel, changing whatever it eats into something like "Flame poop" This is the ash left behind after the flame is done.
If you put flame to paper, you will be left with very visible ashes, sometimes almost a black and brittle twin to the original paper!
If the flame is eating a gas, like the natural gas you might have at home for your mom's oven and stove; the ash left behind is so slight that you can't even see it. But over time, maybe weeks or months, if you burn a gas like that in the same place, there will be some ash left that you can see.
So flame is hot, and bright, and eats what it is burning, changing it into something like ashes.
I'm not a scientist Alan, but I hope I've helped you with your question!
Sincerely
Fred Robel
I thought I'd share it with you. It's not terrible, it's not great. It didn't even get an honorable mention! Go check out the website for the specifics. But the basic rules were: Explain what 'flame" is, to an 11 year old Alan Alda.
Here's my submission:
Dear Alan,
Thank you so much for asking me what a flame is!
Flame, in my understanding, could best be described like this:
Hot, bright, and hungry.
Almost like a living thing, flame needs air, heat, and food (which we would call fuel, like for a car)
When those three things come together in the right amounts, "Flame" happens.
You could also call it a fire.
The flame eats the fuel, changing whatever it eats into something like "Flame poop" This is the ash left behind after the flame is done.
If you put flame to paper, you will be left with very visible ashes, sometimes almost a black and brittle twin to the original paper!
If the flame is eating a gas, like the natural gas you might have at home for your mom's oven and stove; the ash left behind is so slight that you can't even see it. But over time, maybe weeks or months, if you burn a gas like that in the same place, there will be some ash left that you can see.
So flame is hot, and bright, and eats what it is burning, changing it into something like ashes.
I'm not a scientist Alan, but I hope I've helped you with your question!
Sincerely
Fred Robel
