The Chemical History of a Candle

A sequence of accessible lectures uses a common candle as the experimental starting point to demonstrate the physics and chemistry of combustion, describing flame structure, mobility, and brightness. The talks identify combustion products such as water and carbonic acid, trace the roles of hydrogen and oxygen, and explain the composition and behaviour of air. Practical demonstrations and chemical processes used in candle-making, including extraction of stearin from tallow, are presented alongside experiments illustrating gas properties and analogies between burning and respiration. The course concludes with a focused lecture on platinum and annotations that connect the empirical observations to broader principles of natural philosophy.