Weird. The original definition of proof spirit (proper, British proof, where 100° ≈ 57% ABV and 175° = pure alcohol) was that if you soaked gunpowder in it, the gunpowder would still ignite if lit; anything less, and it wouldn’t.
Certainly the 79% (not 79° proof) rum I brought back from a trip to Antigua produced pretty impressive fireballs if you spat it on an open fire.
ETA: ignore me. While the above is true, it has no bearing on your point. Of course 40% spirit burns: it’s how my dad lit the pudding every Christmas. Should’ve remembered.
I love to serve flaming B52’s at parties, but getting regular Bacardi to light up is a royal pain the ass. It will, but it has to get hotter than the overproof stuff, so I have to hold my butane lighter to it longer, which is inherently less cool that click, woosh!
I’m not sure “taste” is the right word for the experience. It was as if someone was simultaneously creosoting and varnish-stripping your throat, if that helps.
I don’t think you were meant to drink it in neat shots, but young male machismo and all that …
Yea, I actually know someone who accidentally put his cigarette out in a can of gas while he was working on his car. Nothing happened, other than the cigarette going out.
No, there’s nothing different between old phones and newer ones that would support the ignition of gasoline or fumes. In general you’ll need something to get a spot that has a critical vapor mix up to about 500°F; the only thing plausible (aside from a super-malfunctioning phone) would be a spark of sorts and phones really have no way of generating a spark. Even if they did somehow generate a spark, the phone is way far away from any critical mix of vapor and air to ever ignite it (the further from the nozzle you get, the lower the mix will be, and fuel-air mixes can be very tight to get proper ignition).
It’s been phones that have to been to blame, when the culprit is static electricity being discharged around the nozzle. It’s a lot easier to just zap that nozzle with static your body has built up by moving around, and that area is much more likely to have a critical mix.
I had a sparking phone once. I had it in a pocket of a rain jacket that filled with water (oops!) and when I went to take the battery out it sparked from the battery to the phone. Scared the crap out of me. I wrapped it up in napkins, carried on hiking in the rain, and then dried it out overnight - miraculously it worked when I turned it on again. This was in 2013 - so not old 90s phones. But yes, highly unlikely, just pointing out that it is possible.
You can actually put out a cig in gas and it will not ignite, it’s lighting the cig that will get you all exploded, if there’s enough vapor.
However, smoking at the gas station is a dick move, as it makes everyone else nervous. Spraying gas on anything living is not cool under any circumstance.
Yep, and I’m pretty sure I’ve verified that it’s just about impossible to light petrol with a cigarette - it takes an actual flame, not a smouldering ember.
Weirdly an actual flame won’t do it either depending on the conditions. But if it’s inconsistently breezy and dry and you spill it somewhere with a good bit of surface area (like warm pavement) then you can often light it with an ember because you end up with a lot of vapor hovering over the fluid. If you spill on cloth or something porous then sometimes a spark will work.
This is technically correct, but gasoline has a flash point of -40 F. Above this temperature (i.e. essentially at all times outdoors at a gas station in the continental US), enough vapors are present above liquid gasoline to form a combustible mixture in air.
As for the article itself, agreed with the above posters. Perhaps squirting someone with washer fluid is not the best method to ensure compliance with your wishes. Hindsight being what it is and all…
