ttps:////»https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd»>
It was an alchemist from Hamburg, Germany, called Henning Brandt, who accidentally discovered, in 1669, the chemical element named phosphorus (from the Greek phos, light, plus phoros, carrier), while trying to obtain gold from urine. The discovery came to the knowledge of the English physicist Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who created, 11 years later, a sheet of rough paper with the presence of phosphorus, accompanied by a wand with sulfur (an element that catches fire easily) in one of the ends. The heat caused by the friction of the toothpick with the rough surface caused the match to release sparks, igniting the sulfur. The invention, however, was still a very expensive curiosity. It was only a century later, in 1826, that matchsticks, then 8 centimeters long, began to become popular. The drawback was that they tended to catch fire on their own inside the package.
This problem would only be solved in 1855 with the emergence of the “safety match”, covered with an insulating agent to prevent it from catching fire for nothing. In Brazil, the product only started to be manufactured at the beginning of the 20th century, by Fiat Lux.
– How does the matchstick work?
– What is black light?