Why a glass barrier can seperate a fire? Energy can transfer even there's no particles. I can hardly imagine the way the glass act as a barrier.

It shatters. im not quite getting what your trying to ask?! what do you mean? contain or seperate fires?

Why a glass barrier can seperate a fire? Energy can transfer even there's no particles. I can hardly imagine the way the glass act as a barrier.

 

What the hell are you talking about? Not one of those sentances makes sense.

i think hes trying to ask why a pane of glass can block a flame. hes asking about the nature of a flame, hes assuming its merely energy, so since the glass can transmit energy why doesnt the flame just continue undisturbed through the glass.

 

thats my best interpretation anyway.

I think you're right Callipygous.

it's a plasma. there's ur answer.

ionized atoms cant just travel throough the lattice of glass

are you sure? I googled it, and nothing came up...where's your source?

Doesn't it block the source of "ignition"?

 

Sure it would transfer heat, but then if you put wood in a saucepan and 'cooked' it for a while, it would be a similar situation of heat transfer but without anything to 'spark' a flame... wouldn't it?

You have to have heat, fuel, and oxygen (in any form, oxidizers included) to have a fire - I'm sure most if not all of you know that - and flames aren't the actual reaction, the chemical change in your fuel is (basic combustion). Transferring flames has nothing to do with blocking ignition, because flames are plasma. With Trans's saucepan thingy, if you did that and put a sparker (like from a butane lighter, without the butane) in it, there will be no fire, because there's no fuel, and as such, no flame. Note that in this case, the spark is supplying the heat/energy, not the flame below.

 

 

I think Callipigous got what the original question was asking (I don't know how he did it, but he did), and I think yourdadonapogostick/akcapr got the explanation for it correct. It has nothing to do with the ignition of the fire, but rather that plasma cannot permeate through a glass lattice.

 

I could be wrong, but I think that's how it was explained to me.

Sources for flame being a plasma:

 

From http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/apr99/923460606.Ch.r.html

A flame is a plasma that contains,

among other things, a lot of hydroxyl (OH) free radicals.

 

From http://www2.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn-archive1/posts/topic18198.shtm

Fire in itself is an oxidisation reaction. This is the bit you can put out. The visible flame is a plasma (gas of ions and electrons), which is the bit that releases the light. Heat is not movement of molecules, but radiated energy. The heat is also radiated from the plasma. The plasma is also very hot (this is the movement of the particles, the energy coming from the reaction) and this energy can be trasfered to other objects which come into the plasma, and start up a 'fire' reaction in that object if it gets hot enough.

 

From http://www.osaka-gu.ac.jp/php/nakagawa/TRIZ/eTRIZ/electures/eSalamatovTextbook001122/eErrataQ&AChap8.htm

This constitutes the answer to the problem, because flame is a plasma, that is ionized gas, it serves as a perfect conductor of electricity.