Skip to content
Tech News

The Chemistry Involved in Lighting a Match Is Surprisingly Awesome

By

Reading time 1 minute

Comments (0)

Many of you may remember this slow motion video from a little over a year ago. The American Chemical Society has now taken this footage—shot at an astounding 4,000 frames per second—to explain what’s actually happening at the molecular level when a match is struck.

Incredibly, it took the ACS nearly a minute and a half to describe what happens in just one-tenth of a second. As the video rightly points out, “chemistry is fast.”

Email the author at [email protected] and follow him @dvorsky.

Explore more on these topics

Share this story

Sign up for our newsletters

Subscribe and interact with our community, get up to date with our customised Newsletters and much more.