Here's something I find interesting.
Firstly, the definition from Wikipedia: Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
For all you bad cooks out there, the reason you can't burn water when you're cooking is because water is already fully oxidized. Water is also often one of those reaction products the definition talks about.
I other words, you can't burn water because it's already burnt.
Also, in order to have fire you need heat, and water is wonderful at absolving and dissipating heat.
- Me with the Technology Connections and Legal Eagle YouTube channels lately.
As a physicist, I find I get less confident in my ability to answer questions like this each day.
Learning what fire actually is, like what the flames are literally made of, blew my freaking mind years ago.
Fire is literally just gas (and fine solid particulates suspended therein) that contains so much thermal energy that its black body radiosity has reached into the visual spectrum.
There are some types of flames that are NOT bright enough to be visible under ambient lighting conditions and can only be seen in environments that are very dark!
Pure ethanol, for instance, combusts dark enough that you can't see the flames in daylight conditions, or even under strong artificial lighting.
