The story of Ben
...oline into motion so that your car can move. Currently the easiest way to create motion from gasoline is to burn the gasoline inside an engine. Therefore, a car engine is an internal combustion engine -- combustion takes place internally. Two things to note: There are different kinds of internal combustion engines. Diesel engines are one form and gas turbine engines are another. See also the articles on Hemi engines, rotary engines and two-stroke engines. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is such a thing as an external combustion engine. A steam engine in old-fashioned trains and steam boats is the best example of an external combustion engine. The fuel (coal, wood, oil, whatever) in a steam engine burns outside the engine to create steam, and the steam creates motion inside the engine. Internal combustion is a lot more efficient (takes less fuel per mile) than external combustion, plus an internal combustion engine is a lot smaller than an equivalent external combustion engine. This explains why we don't see any cars from Ford and GM using steam engines. Black lights look just like normal fluorescent lamps or incandescent light bulbs, but they do something completely different. Switch one on, and white clothes, teeth and various other things glow in the dark, while the bulb itself only emits faint purple light. These devices are all around us -- in clubs, science museums, amusement parks and teenagers' bedrooms, among other places -- but to most people, they're a total mystery. In this article, we'll find out exactly what's going on here. We'll also see why black lights make some objects glow but not others, and we'll look at some interesting black light applications. When energized, mercury atoms emit energy in the form of light photons. They emit some visible light photons, but mostly they emit photons in the ultraviolet (UV) wavelength range. UV light waves are too short for us to see -- they are completely invisible -- so fluorescent lamps have to convert this energy into visible light. They do this with a phosphor coating around the outside of the tube. Phosphors are substances that give off light -- or fluoresce -- when they are exposed to light. When a photon hits a phosphor atom, one of the phosphor's electrons jumps to a higher energy level, causing t...