4 ms·

Thanks for this. Almost 20 years ago I was in high school and I asked my physics teacher "what is fire?". He looked at me with an expression that clearly said (

Thanks for this. Almost 20 years ago I was in high school and I asked my physics teacher "what is fire?". He looked at me with an expression that clearly said (but without words): "this kid is stupid". After I re-affirmed my question and my desire to know what "actually" was fire, he just couldn't answer. Everybody laughed, of course. Now, almost 20 years after, I have a partial answer.

anitil 5y ago
I had a similar experience with static electricity. The explanation was something like 'When you rub wool on a glass rod you develop a charge between them'. Ok, so.... why? And why does the charge develop with one polarity and not the other? Now I'm a bit older I understand that the explanation is somewhere between "the geometry of pointy things" and "get a PhD and you'll understand some of it"