Why Fire is Cool - entry #3 - Ash Ash Baby

When sitting around a campfire I almost always find myself silently staring, mesmerized by the smoldering ashes.  Once I snap out of it, instead of re-joining the conversation with my campfire pals  I often start taking pictures of the ashes.  Though it doesn't live up to the awesomeness of the moment, here is one (notice backlit marshmallow in foreground):

Before we discover the amazing things humans have done with ash, let's figure out what the hell ash is and why red-hot ashes look so awesome.  Once you burn away all of the combustible molecules in wood, the only things left behind (around 1% of the original unburned weight) are the non-combustible nutrients the tree used in order to stay alive.  Ash contains nutrients like calcium (~30% of the ash), potassium (~10% of the ash), and sodium ions (~1% of the ash) along with other metal and non-metal ions (reference).  It is partly these metal ions that make red-hot ashes look so awesome.  As you heat up metal ions in a fire, their electrons will gain energy then lose energy, in a process that results in the emission of light.  Each metal emits light of a specific wavelength, and if you take any substance containing metal ions and put it in a flame you will see this light (this is known as a flame test).

Why Fire is Cool - entry #1 - What are Flames Made Of?

If I were to start a "why fire is cool" list, it would probably reach a length to rival my "ultimate band name" list.  For the sake of brevity however, I will just share the 4 best entries on the fire list, beginning today with entry #1, a blazing introduction into the nature of fire.

Maybe you've had the experience of sitting around a campfire and being unable to peel your eyes away from the smoldering coals.  When this happens to me I have often found myself wondering what the hell IS fire?

Hot coals for staring at.

A question mark made of fire.

Tie tie tie dye dye dye

My girlfriend threw a tie-dye party recently, which by all accounts was a much larger success than the tie-dye party I threw a year or two ago. My party mainly involved me alone in my kitchen, tie-dying my socks and underwear with cheap Rit dye that I bought from the grocery store. Here is what my socks ended up looking like (notice all the bleeding that occurred):

My gf's party differed from mine in three crucial ways: 1-other people were present; 2-she printed off patterns so we knew how to make those awesome spirals and stuff; 3-she used expensive "fiber-reactive dyes" that tend not to bleed or fade. Here is how some of our best items turned out (notice the white whites, and vibrant colors):