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That's a really nice demonstration of the principle behind the Davies safety lamp.

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This reminds me of something that my high school Chemistry teacher told us one day. He told us about how gasses require a certain percentage of oxygen to ignite, so, that if you were to fill up an airtight room with 100% hydrogen, such that no oxygen was present, you could open a door to that room and light a match at the threshold without fear of an explosion. Theoretically the gas in the room would only burn at the door-shaped barrier between the hydrogen and the oxygen on the other side. I remain dubious and I want to see Adam Savage risk his life to bust that myth.

Also, actually related to this video: the guy doing the demonstration,Theodore Gray, has an awesome website if you're into chemistry.

I don't think I want to be the one to test that theory, I'd be worried about what would happen after the initial phase... it is quite true though that the two gases need to be in a certain range of ratios to explode. Since earth has a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere we normally talk about the gas concentration in air, but in the reverse situation you also need a certain percentage of oxygen like your chem teacher said.

There has been talk of coal mining in an oxygen free environment, with the workers wearing space suits, see this Deseret News article from 1970 for instance - http://goo.gl/PEZKp8

I didn't find any evidence that the idea got past feasibility testing.

Sorry, see next post.

Likely because it was quickly determined that it would be insanely expensive to mine coal in an atmosphere-proof suit that allowed the wearer to move freely and breathe for a full eight-hour shift.

Coal's just not that valuable..

So a kind of Faraday Cage for fire. Interesting.