| SmokeyTheBear |
12-30-2004 12:29 AM |
yup those are the ones..
Wint-O-Greens spark because of an effect called triboluminescence - the creation of light by friction. This was first studied not with Life Savers, but with Bacon - Sir Francis Bacon, about 400 years ago. (Nobody was biting on him or anything, he was just smackin' stuff together.)
When you crush sugar crystals, they tend to split along planes with positive charges on one side and negative on the other. As the pieces of candy move apart, the charges want to get back together, so they jump across the air like tiny lightning bolts.
Normally, when you crush sugar, these small sparks excite nitrogen molecules in the air, which subsequently emit mostly ultraviolet light. We can see only a small amount of this light, emitted as a faint bluish glow. Most candies should be capable of this, though it is really hard to see.
But there is something special in Wint-O-Green Life Savers that makes the light much brighter. It's called methyl salicylate, and it's the ingredient that provides the wintergreen flavor. Methyl salicylate absorbs the ultraviolet light given off by the nitrogen and re-emits it as visible light.
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