Fireworks.

Copper produces blue sparks. Barium, also used in rat poison and glassmaking, makes green. A mix of strontium salts, lithium salts and other stuff makes red. Aluminum and titanium put the white stars in an aerial flag.

s of commercial fireworks contain a powdery concoction ofchemicals that produce the bangs and the whistles, as well as the pretty effects. Tubes, hollow spheres, and paper wrappings work as barriers to compartmentalize the effects. More complicated shells are divided into even more sections to control the timing of secondary explosions.

Big booms and whistles come from flash powder. Once used for flashes in photography, it is a combination of fuel-like metal and a chemical that feeds oxygen to fire up the fuel.

Different combinations of metals and oxides produce a whole array of sounds.

While ancient Greeks and Romans used bismuth in their beauty careproducts and coins, chemists add bismuth trioxide to the flash powder to get that crackling sound, dubbed "dragon eggs." Ear-splitting whistles take four ingredients, including a food preservative and Vaseline.

The variety of color in a fireworks show depends on the mix of metals.

• Copper produces blue sparks.
• A mix of strontium salts, lithium salts and other stuff makes red.
• Aluminum and titanium put the white stars in an aerial flag.
• Barium, also used in rat poison and glass making, makes green.
• Calcium burns orange and sodium, yellow.

In recent years, chemists have worked to develop more environmentally friendly fireworks, in part because one ingredient, perchlorate, was found in higher than normal concentrations in a lake where fireworks were shot off, and the chemical is known to cause thyroid problems in humans.

Meanwhile, to light up a red, white, and blue flag, chemists can lay out the emblem's design on wax paper. The pattern you see up in the air, whether it's a smiley face or a bow tie, mirrors the arrangement of the metals in the shell

Well, you did ask, Pete

 

I would have thought that would be the last thing that the person who'd passed away would want.