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November 3, 2014 2 mins

If you've ever bitten into a Wint-O-Green Life Saver candy in the dark, you've probably noticed an accompanying spark of light. Marshall Brain explains the chemistry behind the phenomenon known as triboluminescence in this episode.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff Works dot com where
smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, why
do win a green Life Savers spark in the dark? Actually,
any hard sugar based candy will emit some amount of

(00:23):
light when you bite on it, but most of the
time that light is extremely faint. This effect is called
tribo luminescence. It's the admission of light that happens when
something is being smashed or torn. When you rip a
piece of tape off the roll, it will produce a
slight glow. For the same reason, tribo luminescence occurs when molecules,

(00:46):
in this case crystalline sugars, are crushed. This forces some
of the electrons out of their atomic fields. These free
electrons bump into nitrogen molecules in the air, and when
they collide, the elector drowns impart energy to the nitrogen molecules,
causing them to vibrate. In this excited state, these nitrogen

(01:07):
molecules emit light, mostly ultra violet light that's not visible,
but they do emit a small amount of visible light
as well. This is why all hard sugary candies will
produce a faint glow when cracked, but when you bite
into a winter Green lifesaver, a much greater amount of
visible light can be seen. This brighter light is produced

(01:29):
by the winter green flavoring itself. Methyl salicillate or oil
of winter green, is fluorescent, meaning it absorbs light of
a shorter wavelength and then emits it is light of
a longer wavelength. Ultra Violet light has a shorter wavelength
than visible light, so when a winter green lifesaver is
crushed between your teeth, the methyl salicillate molecules absorb the

(01:52):
ultra violet shorter wavelength light produced by the excited nitrogen
and then re emit it as light in the visible spectrum,
specifically as blue light. Thus you see blue sparks when
you crunch on a winter green light saver. So you
can try this out yourself. Grab some lifesavers, go to
a pitch black room or closet with a friend and

(02:15):
see what happens. Maybe some sparks will fly. Do you
have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so,
please send me an email at podcast at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, go to how stuff works dot com and
be sure to check out the brain Stuff blog on
the how stuff works dot com home page

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