Section 51. Chemical change releases energy.
Why is fire hot?
What makes glowworms glow?
Why does cold quicklime boil when you pour cold water on it?
If no energy were released by chemical change, we should run down like clocks, and could never be wound up again. We could breathe, but to do so would do us no more good than it would if oxygen could not combine with things. Oxidation would go on in our bodies, but it would neither keep us warm nor help us to move. A few spasmodic jerks of our hearts, a few gasps with our lungs, and they would stop, as the muscles would have no energy to keep them going.
The sunlight might continue to warm the earth, as we are not sure that the sun gets any of its heat from chemical change. But fires, while they would burn for an instant, would be absolutely cold; no energy would be given out by the fuel combining with oxygen. But the fires could not burn long, because there would be nothing to keep the gases and fuel hot enough to make them combine with the oxygen.
Even during the instant that a fire lasted it would be invisible, for it would give off no light if no energy were released by the chemical change. Only electric lights and heaters would continue to work, and even some of these would fail. The electric motors in submarines and electric automobiles would instantly stop; battery flashlights would go out as quickly as the fire; no doorbells would ring. In short, all forms of electric batteries would stop sending currents of electricity out through their wires, and everything depending upon batteries would stop running.
A fire gives out heat and light; both are kinds of energy. And it is the electric energy caused by the chemical change in batteries that runs submarines, electric automobiles, flashlights, and doorbells. Since burning (oxidation) is simply a form of chemical change, it is not difficult to realize that chemical change releases energy.
Why glowworms glow. When a glowworm glows at night, or when the head of a match glows as you rub it on your wet hand in the dark, we call the light phosphorescence. The name "phosphorus" means light-bearing, and anything like the element phosphorus, that glows without actively burning, is said to be phosphorescent. Match heads have phosphorus in them. Phosphorescence is almost always caused by chemical change. The energy released is a dim light, not heat or electricity. Sometimes millions of microscopic sea animals make the sea water in warm regions phosphorescent. They, like fireflies, glowworms, and will-o'-the-wisps, have in them some substance that is slowly changing chemically, and energy is released in the form of dim light as the change takes place. Most luminous paint is phosphorescent for the same reason,—there is a chemical change going on that releases energy in the form of light.
When you poured the hydrochloric acid on the zinc to make hydrogen, the flask became warm; the chemical change going on in the flask released heat energy.
Application 76. Explain why pouring cold water on cold quicklime makes the slaked lime that results boiling hot; why a cat's eyes shine in the dark; why a piece of carbon and a piece of zinc placed in a solution of sal ammoniac will make electricity run through the wire that connects them; why fire is hot.