what is fire?

[sarxweh]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

 

[Gottservant]

Fire is combustion, to the simple hearted.

The precise physics of it, does little to illuminate it's continual spread though, that much is true.

 

[AV1611VET]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that when an object is heated, its atoms break apart.

But they don't just break apart and go their own way; they recombine to form smoke and ashes.

This breaking apart and recombining releases energy in the form of photons that we see as flames.

 

[JustMeSee]

It is not life, much to the fascination of my one professor, who often pondered artificial intelligence.

A shot in the dark for a simple educated guess:
Raising a substance higher than its burning point, substances varying, causes fire. What exactly is fire? I don't know without looking.

 

[Michael]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

Fire (the flame part) is the most common state of matter, specifically a plasma. AV got it right. It's formed from a chemical reaction that releases heat.

 

[juvenissun]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

Any system which has higher than normal energy level is in the condition we called it "fire".

 

[Split Rock]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

Fire is burning gas. The oxidation process (which is exothermic) releases heat and light.

 

[selfinflikted]

Fire is burning gas. The oxidation process (which is exothermic) releases heat and light.

This.

How can anyone not know what fire is? Didn't we all go to school?

 

[AV1611VET]

How can anyone not know what fire is? Didn't we all go to school?

Mine burnt down (or up), so I never learned.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Fire is a chemical process; rapid oxidation. Fire is the visual product - flames - of such process.

Fire is what an employer does to an employee no longer desired as an employee.

Fire is the command given to cause the discharge of a firearm; or the action of discharging a firearm.

Fire is used as the verb denoting causing something to burn.

Unless you are using 'fire' in some other sense.

How can anyone not know what fire is? Didn't we all go to school?

I learned about fire in the fireplace at home.

 

[quatona]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable.

Which part do you find unexplainable or hard to explain?

 

[sarxweh]

Which part do you find unexplainable or hard to explain?

Its form, i think. I have read descriptions of it and looked at it and yet have a difficult time conceptualizing what it really is.

My son (he's 10) said the other morning "if dogs and people see color differently, which of us sees things the right way?" I told him I had wondered this question myself because even as humans we may all see different colors and yet call them the same names.

I wonder about fire like this I think. Not simply as a relative entity like color may be, of course (because with color, you have the objective source of light and the blue glove which is only reflecting blue light), but i think of fire in one way, as matter perhaps, and yet it exists as a form of matter in transition to a new form.

And when I've conceptualized it this way, it seems almost useless to think of at all and yet there it is dancing. In truth, I don't know what I mean by the question. Maybe its a silly question

 

[poikilotherm]

Its form, i think. I have read descriptions of it and looked at it and yet have a difficult time conceptualizing what it really is.

My son (he's 10) said the other morning "if dogs and people see color differently, which of us sees things the right way?" I told him I had wondered this question myself because even as humans we may all see different colors and yet call them the same names.

I wonder about fire like this I think. Not simply as a relative entity like color may be, of course (because with color, you have the objective source of light and the blue glove which is only reflecting blue light), but i think of fire in one way, as matter perhaps, and yet it exists as a form of matter in transition to a new form.

And when I've conceptualized it this way, it seems almost useless to think of at all and yet there it is dancing. In truth, I don't know what I mean by the question. Maybe its a silly question

I think it is a very interesting question. I would say that fire is not combustion or chemical reaction, there are many such examples of these processes that do not result in the appearance of what is commonly called "fire" - such as an "invisible" flame.

I therefore assert with supreme confidence that; Fire is a particular range of light patterns emitted by some chemical process. I think?

 

[quatona]

Its form, i think.

Well, I´d say fire is a process, and we don´t recognize processes by their form, of all.

I have read descriptions of it and looked at it and yet have a difficult time conceptualizing what it really is.

It may sound like a nit-picking question, but anyway:
What do you mean by "really" here?
Have you ever run into communication problems involving the word "fire"?
Have you ever encountered a situation when it was important to distinguish "fire" from "non-fire" yet you were unable to tell the two apart?
Are you unable to recognize "fire" when you see it?

My son (he's 10) said the other morning "if dogs and people see color differently, which of us sees things the right way?"

Who told him there was a "right" way of perception?

I told him I had wondered this question myself because even as humans we may all see different colors and yet call them the same names.

And since this is just about names, it seems to work quite fine for communication purposes.

I wonder about fire like this I think. Not simply as a relative entity like color may be, of course (because with color, you have the objective source of light and the blue glove which is only reflecting blue light), but i think of fire in one way, as matter perhaps, and yet it exists as a form of matter in transition to a new form.

Form? I keep wondering about this term in the given context. I´m not sure what you mean by it here.
Anyway, where I come from, we consider *everything* as being in permanent transition. Wherein some transitions are so slow that they allow for the (erroneous) idea of there being permanent objects.

And when I've conceptualized it this way, it seems almost useless to think of at all and yet there it is dancing. In truth, I don't know what I mean by the question. Maybe its a silly question

I am inclined to the notion that using the questions "What is [x]?" and "What do we mean when saying ['x']?" as though they were synonymous is the source of quite some confusion.
Now, if - on top - we ask "What is [x] really?" (as though it would be somehow useful to substract our perception and pretend that the immediate, unperceived nature of our environment would be of any interest to us) things get even worse.

 

[lesliedellow]

Call me crazy. I just want to know if anyone knows what fire is.

It seems like its simple. But I think not. Like most things, we observe it and we take it for granted or assume its completely explainable. But the more I look at it and think about it, the less answers come to mind.

Flames consist of gases so hot that they glow and become visible. Typically, they are mostly carbon dioxide. The reason they are so hot is that they are released in a violent chemical reaction which generates a lot of heat.

If you put something like a sheet of paper in those very hot gases, they will heat it up to a point where another violent chemical reaction, with the oxygen in the atmosphere, starts with that as well.

 

[juvenissun]

Its form, i think. I have read descriptions of it and looked at it and yet have a difficult time conceptualizing what it really is.

My son (he's 10) said the other morning "if dogs and people see color differently, which of us sees things the right way?" I told him I had wondered this question myself because even as humans we may all see different colors and yet call them the same names.

I wonder about fire like this I think. Not simply as a relative entity like color may be, of course (because with color, you have the objective source of light and the blue glove which is only reflecting blue light), but i think of fire in one way, as matter perhaps, and yet it exists as a form of matter in transition to a new form.

And when I've conceptualized it this way, it seems almost useless to think of at all and yet there it is dancing. In truth, I don't know what I mean by the question. Maybe its a silly question

Many forms of fire do not need to have any "flame". An example is the molten iron.

 

[Michael]

What is a Flame? | Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science

FYI, this explanation of a flame is probably the 'best' technical explanation of a flame that I've seen, albeit in a very goofy video. It goes through the various terms and explains the color aspects of flames very well.

 

[lesliedellow]

What is a Flame? | Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science

FYI, this explanation of a flame is probably the 'best' technical explanation of a flame that I've seen, albeit in a very goofy video. It goes through the various terms and explains the color aspects of flames very well.

You are quite sure it isn't an electric current? You must be slipping.

 

[granpa]

fire = fuel + air + heat

 

[AV1611VET]

fire = fuel + air + heat

Then what's freezer burn?