You understand that the reason we make candles out of wax is because it’s a solid fuel, right? The same reason candles work is the reason wax paper isn’t oven safe.
Yeah, I recently learned that most people are totally misunderstanding candles when Hank Green had to do a whole series on “where does the wax go?” on tiktok. Blew my mind that it wasn’t obvious to everyone.
If someone had asked me “what percentage of people know how candles work?” I would probably have answered something like “95% of those over the age of 5”. This is very disconcerting. Not that candles are terribly important, but just the lack of reasoning.
Is it really that weird to not fully understand how candles work? They’re rarely used nowadays if you have electricity, and it’s not exactly the most intuitive - I mean wax melts, and reveals more wick, and the wick is the thing you set fire to, so I don’t think it’s that weird to think the wick is burning.
You understand that the reason we make candles out of wax is because it’s a solid fuel, right? The same reason candles work is the reason wax paper isn’t oven safe.
A lot of people think that the wick itself is the fuel. I only recently realized that it’s “wicking” up melted wax, and the wax itself is the fuel.
Somebody on Reddit once called me a backward Amish for knowing how a candle works.
This was the meme I commented on
It breaks my heart that examining and understanding the world around you is the kind of thing people disparage
Yeah, I recently learned that most people are totally misunderstanding candles when Hank Green had to do a whole series on “where does the wax go?” on tiktok. Blew my mind that it wasn’t obvious to everyone.
If someone had asked me “what percentage of people know how candles work?” I would probably have answered something like “95% of those over the age of 5”. This is very disconcerting. Not that candles are terribly important, but just the lack of reasoning.
Is it really that weird to not fully understand how candles work? They’re rarely used nowadays if you have electricity, and it’s not exactly the most intuitive - I mean wax melts, and reveals more wick, and the wick is the thing you set fire to, so I don’t think it’s that weird to think the wick is burning.
I would assume people goong “ok, so the wick burns but what is the purpose of the wax? Oh it’s the fuel duh”