I burn a candle most mornings, and I have never really thought about how a candle burns. The nerdy side of me sort of enjoyed this. I listened to it with Librivox, and the narrator was excellent!
From Amazon:
The greatest experimental scientist Michael Faraday delivered these six lectures at London's Royal Institution. Their subjects include the components, function, and weight of the atmosphere; capillary attraction; the carbon content in oxygen and living bodies; respiration and its analogy to the burning of a candle; and much more. Numerous illustrations.
Here is why James Mustich thinks it is one of the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die:
This captivating little book collects six demonstration lectures originally addressed to a group of young people at London’s Royal Institution in 1860 by the eminent British experimental scientist best known for his contributions to our understanding of electricity. Elucidating the chemical and physical properties and processes that conspire in a burning candle, Faraday delivers a splendid course in what was called, in his epoch, “natural philosophy.” One of the most treasured and widely disseminated works of popular science ever written, it has been fondly recalled as a formative inspiration by many scientists, including Oliver Sacks.
Since I started out this year with "Don't Let the Light Go Out" by Peter, Paul, and Mary, I love that the presenter, after explaining the "carbon footprint" of different animals and people through respiration, concluded his lectures with this:
In the lungs, as soon as the air enters, it unites with the carbon; even in the lowest temperature which the body can bear short of being frozen, the action begins at once, producing the carbonic acid of respiration: and so all things go on fitly and properly. Thus you see the analogy between respiration and combustion is rendered still more beautiful and striking. Indeed, all I can say to you at the end of these lectures (for we must come to an end at one time or other) is to express a wish that you may, in your generation, be fit to compare to a candle; that you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you; that, in all your actions, you may justify the beauty of the taper by making your deeds honourable and effectual in the discharge of your duty to your fellow-men.
Text for all the nerdy lectures found here:
https://ia803007.us.archive.org/22/items/diary182061/The%20Chemical%20History%20of%20a%20Candle.pdf
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