Why Does a Match Strike?
A match strikes because we make it warm by rubbing it on something. You know that you have to rub something rather rough, so there is a good deal of friction. The movement of the match is hindered by the rough thing you press it against, and that is what we mean by friction. This makes the match hot. Rub the tip of your finger on your coat, and you will soon make your finger hot. Now, the whole thing about the match is that its head is made of a mixture of things to which nothing happens as long as they are kept ordinarily cool, but as soon as they are made hot enough they catch fire – that is to say, they combine with the oxygen of the air, and so burn. Our business, then, is to get a kind of mixture that will stay on the end of a piece of wood, or some such thing, and will catch fire even when made only so hot as we can make it by rubbing. Over a hundred years ago the first friction match was made, and almost the best of these at first required a lot of friction, for it had to be dra
