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Article #4244Re: Campfire and plasma musings
From: John C. Baez
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1992 19:26
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1992 19:26
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In article <6NOV199215262053@csa1.lbl.gov> sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes: >In article <74055@apple.Apple.COM>, slovick@Apple.COM (Linda Slovick) writes... >>2.) Is a flame a plasma? > >Yes. We went through this once upon a time before and I seem to recall that someone said that such a flame (a campfire flame) was a relatively wimpy form of plasma. Well, they used a more technical sounding term, but what it meant was that the gas was far from fully ionized. I guess there is no sharp transition between (ordinary) gas and plasma, the way there is between liquid and gas (at low pressures). A really intense plasma like near the core of the sun would be just a bunch of electrons and nuclei whizzing around like mad. I imagine that in a not-too-hot flame, there are a bunch of atoms missing only a few of their electrons. Anyone know HOW ionized a campfire flame is?
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Newsgroups: sci.physics Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!galois!riesz!jbaez From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) Subject: Re: Campfire and plasma musings Message-ID: <1992Nov7.192607.23040@galois.mit.edu> Sender: news@galois.mit.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: riesz Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA References: <74055@apple.Apple.COM> <6NOV199215262053@csa1.lbl.gov> Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 19:26:07 GMT Lines: 17