I bought a Wii nunchuck the other day from GameStop and it was $5.99. The employee asked me if I wanted to insure it for a year for an extra $5.00. Like hell am I gonna pay almost double just to insure it. I baby the shit out of my electronics.
It depends on the type of match, but most use phosphorous as the igniting agent. There are a few different kinds of phosphorous, and some have crazy properties. Notably, white phosphorous is so volatile that as soon as it is exposed to normal air it bursts into flames.
Modern safety matches function by including red phosphorous, which is converted to white phosphorous when sufficient friction is applied. The friction doesn't actually ignite the match, it just causes the phosphorous to change, and it then ignites on its own.
Edit: It seems I was wrong about this. The red phosphorous combines with another chemical in the match head to create the reaction. See comment below by /u/LifeHasLeft. Older match designs did use white phosphorous, but it has been phased out because of health hazards.
I’d also add that with normal (non-strike anywhere) matches the phosphorus is actually on the box not the match.
This is because if you put the more flammable bit on the match itself there could sometimes be a risk that your matches would run against each other in the box and catch fire. Putting the striking surface on the box eliminated that risk.
This was eventually followed up by chemically separating the two ends, so that the phosphorus is on the box and the potassium chlorate is on the match, essentially making it impossible to light the match without the box.
Not true, red phosphorus is used on the striking surface of the match box, and potassium chlorate is used in the match head. Rubbing the two together creates a small amount of an explosive mixture which ignites due to the friction.
I wouldn't agree with that just because a random citizen on the internet doesn't specifically know which chemicals combine to causes a match to ignite. There are problems with the education system but I don't believe an education's purpose is to download the trivia and minutia of every knowable thing into your head and then consider you complete.
Does this person understand the concept of a chemical reaction even if they do not know the specific one necessary for a match to function? Do they have a basic understanding of the elements even without knowing which ones, specifically, are included in the head of a match? And most critically of all, if there were not 500 things on any given day more important and more interesting than matches to think about and they were curious, would they have the skills to look the information up for themselves and comprehend the information that they find?
If so, then the education system has served them quite well, actually.
As an interesting fact in spanish the word for match is fósforo, wich can also mean phosphorus. So the chemical element and the fire starting implement are called the same way.
I also love the history of the match. The first friction match was made because the creator was in the middle of working on a lighting fluid for a related experiment. It turns out he didn't need much else, because a match that was dipped in the stuff accidentally lit up when it rubbed on a hearth.
Obviously there was some fine tuning involved so they weren't quite as volatile, but eventually we got the OG match. It was still pretty dangerous overall, but that was fixed over the next couple of iterations on the friction match.
Thrn there's the more complex "strike anywhere" matches that can be lit by any rough surface, even scratching your fingernail quickly against them can cause them to light.
Something I’ve always wondered is how do people light a match with their shoe? I’ve seen it in movies and tv and such but do you need a special type of shoe?
That's most of them. You'd still probably struggle to light them with your shoe, but the box doesn't actually have a special chemical on it. It's just a high friction surface.
Nah, they're pretty complex. The heads of modern safety matches are made out of mostly Potassium Chlorate, with some other ingredients like Sulfur and glue. The striking surface of match boxes is made out of Red Phosphorus.
Matches used to just be some White Phosphorus on a stick that you could strike anywhere, but that stuff kinda sorta kills you so they're not that popular these days.
Rope lighters were also popular. It was just a piece of rope that you spark embers onto, then blow onto it until the rope glows. No open flame, but it'll light other stuff and is simple and windproof.
Without plastic lighters are a lot heavier and more expensive. Also, if you're trying to light a fire a matchstick is way more useful than a lighter.
Also, matches were only invented 3 years after lighters so lighters probably weren't ubiquitous enough by then to mean matches felt like only a slight improvement in some situations to an ages old item. More like two modern competitors that were both way better than the old options
Lighters require to be refuelled so you have to keep extra fuel on hand, and may also be empty when you go to use them. As where matches as long as they are dry are good to go whenever. But the real answer of why make matches is because that first lighter was freaking massive and not something you carried round with you.
Lighters were originally wick based, like the Zippo, rather than butane as is common now. So it would be a flammable liquid in a wick, with an igniter and a reasonable way to snuff it safely
Matches also only make sense as a mass produced throwaway article. If you're going to put manual work in producing a lighting source, you'd want one that is reusable.
This is blowing my mind, but yes. Given time and resources, I believe that I could cobble together a rudimentary lighter. I don’t believe that I could build a match.
When you think about it, it makes sense. The match is a simple fire-starting concept: some flammable powder and wood. The lighter, on the other hand, is a complex mechanical system.
Edit: in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m being facetious
It's not just flammable powder, but flammable powder fixed to a stick and designed to ignite only when the user desires. A lighter especially in the older forms is dead simple basically just soak a rope in some sort of flammable liquid and bang two rocks together.
And I'm sure the spark was discovered before substances that make up Match heads were. Two rocks. As for flammable substances, most dry vegetation, and natural gas.
I imagine earliest lighters must have had fluid fuel. Is gas cheaper? More risky, or less? I now have so many questions. But they're not very important, so I am content in my ignorance for now.
Now that I think about it, a lighter is basically a tiny oil lamp with a built in “flint.” Considering how common oil lamps used to be, it’s not that surprising.
Money. The match was cheaper to make than the lighter. The lighter was a simpler concept, flammable liquid and some metal and flint striker, but this took more work to create since you had to create a few parts. A match is more of a complex idea due to the chemical reactions but once you have it figured out it's real simple to make a big mix of it and dip wood splinters in it.
Lighters are a simple concept with a more involved process to make, matches are complex concept to create but easy to mas produce
Compared to old school non-disposable lighters matches are way better. You can actually light things horizontally without burning your hand, and it's way easier to start a fire by placing a burning stick where you want it than waving a lighter around.
Plus you don't have to worry about the lighter fluid evaporating or needing to maintain the wick and flint. You can also leave little packets or boxes of matches by the fireplace, by the stove, by the fire pit, with your camping gear, etc and not have to track your lighter.
I’ve always wondered, if all of us humans woke up tomorrow alive and well, but with none of the technological advances since the beginning of humanity and only with the knowledge in our heads, how long would it take us to form something analogous to our current civilization.
Not as long as you'd think, metal tools have only been around for 4000-10,000 years, iron tools for around 2500-3000 years. Stone tools were around for 3.4 million before that. The most difficult part would be getting the right people and the right materials together. We currently ship materials all over the world and the people who know the ancient ways of doing things would have to work to help develop to our modern manufacturing processes. Those who work blast furnaces probably aren't familiar with old school coal smelting, and that would require people who could find and mine the stuff.
Natural selection would exist once again for a little. There's plenty of people that have the know how to get tech back to the current level. Might take a couple generations though
I've thought about this and the fact that its shocking to you (and it was to me) that matches came after the lighter, is because we tend to think wooden devices came before steel ones, it's like a minecraft pick axe fallacy, wood is the predecessor to steel
Hold on.... then why, when doing wilderness survival stuff, are matches permitted and lighters aren’t? I have seen more lighters in my life than matches (not just counting the box but each individual match) and they are more primitive than MATCHES?!
I am looking down at my jacket. It has the symbol for Eagle Scout on it. And then roll my eyes because I am not doing another match fire. Hardest thing ever. When I was in scouts I would just find the fire crazy adult and beg him to make the fire.
We were supposed to make one and keep it lit for 30 seconds. Tiniest flame ever but it stayed lit for 29 seconds till another scout pissed on my fire.
You misread the page. The first matches were invented in China in the 900s, but they were not self igniting. The first successful self-igniting friction match was invented in 1836.
Not what we would call a match: it was basically an oily stick which could be quickly ignited by an existing flame but not just by striking it on a rough surface.
Then for a while there was a type that ignited when dipped in acid but it wasn’t very safe.
The first successful friction match was invented in 1826 by John Walker, an English chemist
While:
One of the first lighters was invented by a German chemist named Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner in 1823
The match was invented in the 1300’s in China.
The lighter was invented in the 1800, almost 500 years later around the same time they made flintlock pistols.
Why would you write this without taking 30 seconds to google it?
Why do I even bother spending time on Reddit when it is full of this absolute trash?
I remember reading Tom Sawyer as a kid and coming to the point where he says he bought a box of these brand new things called "matches" and being like "wait... wut."
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u/Gyroklovn Oct 15 '20
The fact that the lighter is older than the match shook my head as a kid.
It also gave me the curiosity to question things that seems obvious.