Fourth of July Tribute (and fun science firework stuff!)

From ScienceNews for Students:

Bang, sparkle, burst, and boom
Fireworks put on a dazzling, colorful chemical show.
ByEmily Sohn
12:00am, June 20, 2005

"Every country, it seems, has a fireworks day," says John Conkling. He's a chemist and fireworks researcher at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. "People universally seem to get a deep satisfaction from watching fireworks," he says.

Viewer satisfaction demands serious science. All year long, researchers such as Conkling mix and burn chemicals in the lab to see what kinds of flames they can create. Now, with advances in technology and chemistry, holiday celebrations are more dazzling and colorful than ever.

Every type of firework is designed to burn for a certain amount of time in particular colors and patterns. The presence of different chemicals produces different colors.

One of the newest trends in fireworks, Conkling says, is the use of patterns. By arranging pellets in a flat layer inside the cartridge, researchers have figured out how to make fireworks that explode in the shape of hearts, Olympic rings, and other objects.

The more you learn about fireworks, the more you might appreciate the Fourth of July and other celebrations with the eye of a scientist.

The Science Behind Fireworks – How Do They Produce the Brilliant Colors and Designs?
By Blog Editor Susan Wells

Fireworks are as much a part of the Fourth of July as hot dogs, watermelon and red, white and blue. How do they get those brilliant colors, sparkling trails and heart shapes? There’s a science to creating the perfect firework display.

Before we dive into the science behind fireworks, let’s start with a little history. The Chinese invented fireworks somewhere around 960 and 1279 AD. They shot off fireworks to ward off evil spirits and used them during celebrations, like the Emperor’s birthdays and Chinese holidays.

Fireworks were first used to celebrate independence in the United States on July 8, 1776.

Read more at the link above to find out what’s inside of a firework, how they create multi-explosions, effects and colors in one firework, and how they create patterns! Happy 4th of July!

America's Founding Documents
These three documents, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, have secured the rights of the American people for more than two and a quarter centuries and are considered instrumental to its founding and philosophy of the United States.

Though the examples in this piece are definitively the progressive perspective (feel free to substitute your own as you read it), the message behind this is for all. Democracy is a process that we must continually work on together and if we do so, there are no challenges we can't overcome. Happy 4th of July to all of us in the greatest country in the world!

Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. Isaiah Berlin

This Work Must Continue
Daily Stoic, July 4, 2021

That’s what politics are supposed to be. It’s not something you consume. It’s something we do. It’s about living and embodying the ideas we hold in common and making them into real, tangible policy.

The 4th of July is not a celebration of hotdogs and BBQs, it’s a celebration of a process...

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. ~Alexis de Tocqueville

An NPR Tradition, Here's The Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence

"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." — George Washington

"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." — Franklin D. Roosevelt