This is amazing. I remember being a kid and asking the question, what kind of matter exactly is a flame? Is it plasma?

The first satisfying answer I've ever seen. (And please, if you've seen other good resources, post them here too!)

Hopefully somebody will eventually help to curate all of these great teaching aids / resources and help educators discover and use them too...

TIL I learned about what actually makes a flame. I never really asked myself what makes up a flame. I kind of took it for granted.

Despite being a top science student at school, I learned more in those 7 minutes than any given 7 minutes of a science class in my life.

Could more of education look like this? Why doesn't it?

While everything the video was talking about is correct, this also only scratches the surface of what is going on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox). Science at school has to go into much more detail to prepare you for when you chose chemistry as your topic for University.

A comparable video that actually gives all that detail is very hard to do (if it's at all possible) and it's also likely to be very boring - unless you are into chemistry at which point you don't need a video like this in the first place because the books are perfectly fine for you (they were for me and I have nothing but interest into chemistry - no education aside of what you'd get in High-School).

But why does school have to prepare you for every college there is, including those you aren't going to attend?

95% high schoolers aren't going to any college requiring chemistry. Why not teach the fun and memorable flame to them, instead of boring chemistry flame they wouldn't understand or remember?

Why does it have to be boring? A good science teacher and method can make all elements fascinating. I'd reference the Feynman lectures as an example of this.

...Came expecting a detailed interesting dissection of the recent Flame virus... left disappointed...

Came expecting a detailed interesting dissection of the recent Flame virus, left even happier. After all, I'll encounter fire much more often than Flame.

...Came expecting a detailed interesting dissection of why fire makes a flame (seriously)... Left pleased and satisfied...

To be fair, it is really bizarre that the article chooses to phrasing “the flame.” “Flames” would make more sense.

I was 100% sure this was going to explain the Flame virus.

Same. I was thinking an explanation of Flame that an 11 year old could understand might help Fox News figure out what the hell they're babbling on about.

The following article might be of interest to you then: CWI cryptanalist discovers new cryptographic attack variant in Flame spy malware http://www.cwi.nl/news/2012/cwi-cryptanalist-discovers-new-c...

National Public Radio Science Friday segment about the flame explanation challenge, with interview of the creator of the winning video:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/06/08/2012/what-is-a-flam...

I heard this on air on Friday 8 June 2012 in Minnesota.

This is a surprising and refreshingly entertaining video. I have always been curious as to what flames really were, but it has always been on my "Things to look up eventually list" that I never get around to. The song at the end was a nice touch too (though I'm not a fan of the M83-esque yelling in it).

The blog has crapped out does anyone have a direct link to the video?

video: https://vimeo.com/40271657

info: http://flamechallenge.org/