• Question: Does Phosphorus spontaneously combust?

    Asked by cewwen to Louise, Michaela, Sian, Steve, Yvette on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michaela Livingstone

      Michaela Livingstone answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I think I read somewhere that it does in marshes or something? Like marsh glows… but honestly, I haven’t done chemistry since school, so I wouldn’t know, sorry!

    • Photo: Louise Johnson

      Louise Johnson answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I think certain forms of phosphorus do, in oxygen, but I’m not a chemist.

    • Photo: Steven Kiddle

      Steven Kiddle answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I don’t know, i have done very little chemistry since GCSE

    • Photo: Yvette Wilson

      Yvette Wilson answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      i think so, but not sure

Comments

  • Photo: cewwen

    cewwen commented on :

    I researched this topic and realised that my teacher was actually wrong. Im kind of dissapointed because my eduaction is very important to me and even one piece of wrong information can get stuck in my head causing me to spread around things that are not true. 🙁

  • Photo: Yvette

    Yvette commented on :

    You’re all asking good questions, but imagine the responsibility we feel to give you good answers 🙂 I wouldn’t feel too bad about having false information – I think about science as always starting with possibly false information and ‘improving’ it. I made some really bad mistakes in interpretting my PhD and felt a bit stupid when my examiners pointed them out to me.