How do sticks make fire?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

People rubbing two sticks together and a fire magically appearing is a common thing you might see in movies or on television. But does it actually work? We asked engineer Vi Rapp to help us find the answer.

Got a question that’s flickering in your brain? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help put out the fire.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.
0:05.8	Um, um, um, um, um, um, moment of um comes to you from APM studios. I'm Anna Weggle.
0:13.5	Um.
0:15.9	Hey, everybody. Okay, so I'm camping right now in the boundary waters in Minnesota.
0:21.7	We're on Leech Lake, and it's been a pretty harrowing trip so far.
0:25.1	We canoed in, portaged with all of our heavy gear and canoes,
0:29.1	and last night it was so windy that we had to put rocks on our stuff,
0:33.4	or it would blow all over the place.
0:35.6	So now that we've made it to morning, and everyone's still asleep,
0:39.2	I thought I would get breakfast going.
0:41.0	I really, really need coffee first, though.
0:43.4	But to make coffee, you need to boil water.
0:46.0	And to boil water, you need to make a fire.
0:48.5	Guess what?
0:49.5	I'm not the best camper in the world, okay?
0:51.9	I'm more of an indoor person.
0:53.4	Like, if you need help
0:54.9	navigating your Apple TV, I can definitely help you with that. See, every time I've gone camping,
1:00.1	someone else has made the fire. I don't know if they had a lighter or one of those small
1:04.9	metal fire starters or a torch, or maybe they lit it with mind control. I don't know. Okay, so you know what though?
1:12.6	Something I've seen on TV my whole life is people rubbing two sticks together, like really, really,
1:17.3	really fast, and that seems to work. Here, let's see if I can do this.
	...

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