When I was in grade school I'd hear guys talking about the match to the buttocks trick. Never witnessed it myself. Maybe with a pair of roller skates and a Zippo a "Petomane" could propel himself around town. I can only imagine what would happen the first time a traffic cop got "wind" of his antics.

We were told in high school chemistry class that hydrogen (not sure about methane - I was asleep at the time) was a colorless ODORLESS gas! Extra fine Turtelian science and remember...octane is eight times worse than methane!

{pedant}The red / blue colour of the flame is dependent on heat, rather than impurities - methane burning with enough oxygen to combust completely will burn with an almost invisible blue flame; without enough oxygen, it doesn't get quite as hot (like what happens when you close the air hole of the bunsen burner).{/pedant}... but I always like chemoparodies, so nice one, TT :-)

This was a gassssss! Since nature has arranged things such that 'our own' don't smell that bad, does that imply we're all *meth* addicts? Five 'Orders Of The Blue Flame' props to you!

Great theory in "gas/fart" chemistry, TT! Flames sure burn on that Dutch oven now! I also learned that sulfur causes flatulence, which explains the fart odor (or rotten eggs) in sulfur. Smellin' ya 5's!

Phil Alexander: Didn't you say the same thing I said? If there isn't enough O2, some of the methane won't oxidize, resulting in the "incomplete combustion" that the parody cited. If I'm missing something else, I'd certainly like to know. Thanks either way, and for the v/c.

T. Boone Pickens is always lobbying for natural gas... but I don't think this is quite what he means... ;)

I thought that was an urban legend.

Patrick: Imagine all the polluting autos off the streets, and all of us on roller skates, propelled by ... uh, maybe we'd best *not* imagine it! LOL, and thanks for v/c.

Old Man Ribber: As far as octane, hey, don't "knock" it! :-D

TJC: Apparently, sulfur addicts.... :)

Christie Marie M: (sniff ... sniff... :wink:) Yep, 100% right about the smell of rotten eggs. Thanks for the swell smell!

Fiddlegirl: Actually, it's *exactly* what he means. The only difference is that he wants to use a different source, namely, wells, land, rights, etc. that he owns. Why waste all that when we can "grow our own"? ;-)

2Eagle: Try it yourself, and let us know the results. (O ye of little faith.... ;-) Thanks for v/c.

Flatulent out funny !!

AFW: LOL!!!

Ahhh, we now see(and smell) the secrets you keep in that Thunderdome shell of yours. LOL

TT - where you said "The orange and red hues in most fires come from impurities, incompletely-combusted particles, etc. ", that isn't the same as "it comes out orangey-red because it's burning at a lower temperature", although burning at a lower temperature is pretty much inevitable if combustion is incomplete (you can get colours from impurities, e.g. potassium makes a lovely purple colour, but those colours would generally still be there in a hot flame, too)

An aside about sulphur - we find most compounds where sulphur replaces oxygen (it's the next one down in group 6) very smelly, from the simplest H2S "rotten eggs" smell, to mercapto-methanol (CH3SH), what they stick in natural gas to make it smell.. they're also pretty toxic, by and large, so our reaction to their smell is probably quite a good thing from an evolutionary perspective.

Mark Scotti: LOL!!!!

Phil Alexander: I think we're down to semantics. You're right; I should have been more clear on that. But TT's footnotes are already known for going waaay over - you'll notice that the methane oxidation formula specifically said, "skipping the intermediate steps". And you definitely would *not* be happy with
"Both Bytes Now (How Computers Work - For *NON*-Geeks)"
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/judycollins8.shtml
although the outro gave a disclaimer apologizing to true techies for the over-simplification.

So, pardon the over-simplification here. Revision:
"Specific elements or compounds can be added deliberately (e. g. to fireworks) to color the flame, and accidental impurities can color it directly. They also color it by causing incomplete combustion, resulting in less heat, resulting in.... "

From now on, will have one set of footnotes, and a second set of Philnotes. :) ;) :) .. I do enjoy making complex subjects accessible to zero-knowledge readers, but you have to start somewhere, and you can't overdo it -- I've been called on that before, as well. Damned if you do, damned if you don't .. . well, no one said that life is fair. :-D

An aside to your aside: *All* things must be pretty good from an evolutionary perspective, ipso facto -- tautology, actually. Most poisons smell and taste bad, and most nutritious food smells good, before our tastes became corrupted by the influence of refined sugars, etc.. Our affluence and sedentary lifestyles may make that steak harmful to our arteries, though not to our brink-of-starvation hunter-gatherer ancestors. Smell is very powerful in, e. g., sexual attraction, sometimes subliminally.

Finally, a confession: Having written parodies on law, economics, medicine, mathematics, political philosophy, finance, Shakespeare, classical literature, Renaissance literature, STDs, Krafft-Ebbing (i. e. 6ual "variations"), grammar and punctuation, feminine hygiene, computers, encryption, organized crime, geography, one parody written entirely in Spanish (translation was provided), pelagic creatures, anatomy, and endangered sea turtles, among other topics, I do confess that that chemistry is not among the highest on the polymathic ranking scale. Didn't much like it in college. Still, I thought that this was sufficient for a "mixture" (heh!) of a pooh-parody and scientific elucidation, a combination probably not seen before, at least by moi.

Thanks as always for your enlightenment and thoughtful comments.