I am watching it burn

February 14, 2018 8:06 AM

Guy decides to make a sphere out of 42,000 matches, then sets it on fire.
posted by jeather (60 comments total)

I love the video and I want the next Olympic torch to be a match ball!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:19 AM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Smoldering decay
Take her breath away
Millions of our years
In minutes disappears
posted by bondcliff at 8:20 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

If you were going to swede Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, this is your guy right here.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:21 AM on February 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Please. That's obviously a chroma-keyed meteor burning up in the atmosphere.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:22 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

This was deeply satisfying.

I wanted it to keep burning and then collapse inward though. I suppose the glue kept that from happening. I'd love to see close up pictures of the surface before and after burning.
posted by Mizu at 8:24 AM on February 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Anyone else just skip straight to the money shot of him lighting the match-sphere on fire?
posted by SansPoint at 8:26 AM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Anyone else just skip straight to the money shot of him lighting the match-sphere on fire?

Yes. The Wadsworth Constant always applies. "hey here is a video of something really cool" should start and end with the cool thing. We don't need explanations or setup.
posted by bondcliff at 8:29 AM on February 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Surely this achievement will not go unmatched.
posted by cmoj at 8:31 AM on February 14, 2018 [24 favorites]

Let's not forget George Goble of Purdue University, who fired up his barbecue with liquid oxygen.
posted by adamg at 8:31 AM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I wanted it to keep burning and then collapse inward though. I suppose the glue kept that from happening. I'd love to see close up pictures of the surface before and after burning.

Alternatively, there wasn't enough oxygen getting to the interior of the ball to support combustion.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:35 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

This was fun and satisfying to watch, but nowhere near as impressive as the famed Mythbusters million-match-head fireball.
posted by briank at 8:44 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Paging bondcliff : This could be an interesting variation on your Death Star
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:45 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

This was super-cool but I just can't help but wonder how much cooler it would have looked properly lit against a black background. Seeing the smoke sort of pulse out of it was mesmerizing. Someone needs to replicate this with better production values!
posted by Defective_Monk at 8:46 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Some people just want to watch the world burn.
posted by darkstar at 8:49 AM on February 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

Surely this achievement will not go unmatched.

GROAN
posted by MissySedai at 8:50 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

They didn't take the internal temperature or the surface temperature, so there is an excuse to do this again - for science!
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:51 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

And thus was the Eye of Sauron created
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:53 AM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Paging bondcliff : This could be an interesting variation on your Death Star

Sadly, the costume no longer fits him and he's outgrown all his fireproof pajamas.
posted by bondcliff at 8:53 AM on February 14, 2018

Let's not forget George Goble of Purdue University, who fired up his barbecue with liquid oxygen

I watched the video, and it all turns out fine and fun to watch, but that has not stopped my brain from insisting that the only way for that sentence to make sense is by inserting the phrase "the late" before the guy's name.
posted by solotoro at 8:59 AM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

That was quite beautiful.

Now do it in zero G.

Also, worried that dude's backyard is now a Superfund site.
posted by gwint at 9:01 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

~42,000 / 900 = 46.6666
47 *$14.95 = $702.65

Possible meetup!
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:01 AM on February 14, 2018

I've been calling out to random coworkers passing by, "Hey, you wanna watch a ball made of 42,000 matches burn?" and so far the response has universally been "YES."

Humans all have a little pyromaniac inside them.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:03 AM on February 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Would have liked to see the sphere made up to look like the Death Star.
posted by terrapin at 9:04 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I feel like using only green matches was a missed opportunity. As a lover of really tedious tasks, I would have thrown in some red ones and made a design. That being said, there's no way I would have time to do something like this...
posted by jenjenc at 9:06 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I love two things about this.

This guy spent a year of his life building this thing, then a lot of work making a very high quality video of burning it. Then he just kinda posts it to Reddit. For the karma I guess? I'm glad BoredPanda picked it up and now here.

Also this bit from his process: "I was doing all this work in a metal shop so it was a lot of fun to keep sparks away from this". You spend a year making a sculpture out of matches and it didn't occur to you to, you know, do it in a spark-free environment?
posted by Nelson at 9:12 AM on February 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Alternatively, there wasn't enough oxygen getting to the interior of the ball to support combustion.
That was my thought, too. I did wonder about putting every other match in backwards, offset 50% longitudinally to the next one to see if that would get more complete combustion. I mean, I have neither the time or the patience to test it, but spacing them a little would give a longer burn (I think) and then the anticipation of the middle ones going off at some point. Maybe.
posted by Brockles at 9:14 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

As I love the smell of sulfur, I would have enjoyed standing downwind of this, albeit with an oxygen tank at the ready.

far enough down wind, I wouldn't catch the oxy tank on fire, of course
posted by deezil at 9:28 AM on February 14, 2018

I can't imagine the burns on his fingers from the hot glue. Every forking time I use hot glue. Finger BURN!
posted by hot_monster at 9:32 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

That first angle makes It look like he burnt a hole in the skin of reality.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 9:36 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Goodness gracious.
posted by Hypatia at 9:38 AM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ha, it's the same guy who made the cart to make his girlfriend's bunny bring him beer. I approve of people spending a year of their life to entertain me, even if it's only for 30 seconds. Maybe especially if it's only for 30 seconds.
posted by like_neon at 9:40 AM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

I bet this smelled REALLY GOOD.
posted by PuppyCat at 9:40 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I especially liked:

1. When he was building the sphere and was almost done, but there was still a hole in it, it looked like one of those weird fruits that have that sort of texture inside,

2. The conflagration "front" as it crept across the surface of the sphere like an extinction level event, and

3. The after effect, where the pulsing, laminae of smoke throbbed around the surface of the black orb of doom.
posted by darkstar at 9:41 AM on February 14, 2018 [13 favorites]

Good bye little green planet :(
posted by hat_eater at 9:43 AM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Needs moar dramatic soundtrack. Try playing O Fortuna concurrently during the slo-mo bit.
posted by BlueJae at 9:44 AM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Anyone else just skip straight to the money shot of him lighting the match-sphere on fire?

Like with porn?
posted by waving at 9:45 AM on February 14, 2018

My first thought on seeing this FPP was: “I bet at least one of those three links goes to Reddit.”

Damn I’m good.
posted by ardgedee at 9:50 AM on February 14, 2018

but nowhere near as impressive as the famed Mythbusters million-match-head fireball

Once you're tired of matches, move on to the hard stuff: sparklers.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:54 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

one of those weird fruits that have that sort of texture inside

Perhaps the Fruit Of The Hala Aka Puhala Tree? (Ah, BoredPanda, it's like the good ol' days of Mashable.)
posted by Nelson at 10:15 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Kharak... is burning...
posted by Sebmojo at 10:18 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

it looked like one of those weird fruits that have that sort of texture inside,

Orange Osage ? (Or jack fruit, or durian -- they all have that same round, pebbly texture.. )
posted by k5.user at 11:40 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

May it smolder forever.
posted by me3dia at 11:49 AM on February 14, 2018

n-thing the Death Star idea. About half-way through the burn I thought that this was a lost opportunity to 'sculpt' a little bit during the assembly so after the burn he could have coated it in a protective polyurethane layer and had an awesome Death Star sculpture.
posted by achrise at 11:49 AM on February 14, 2018

Alternatively, there wasn't enough oxygen getting to the interior of the ball to support combustion.
That was my thought, too. It appears that the heads ignite, and then the wooden part is hot enough to smoulder, but doesn't getting enough oxygen to continue burning. My theory is that the glue is smothering any further combustion. I wonder what would happen if someone were to build the ball in panels, like a soccer ball. In my thought experiment, we use a template to line up the matches in the right shape, and then dip the tail ends into a 1 cm deep tray of liquid glue. That would take much less time than gluing the matches individually, and allow more air between the matches.

Also, let's throw it with a trebuchet!
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 11:54 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

YouTube money is a bit of a dark art (since YT doesn't want its algorithm to be solvable), but if he's #9 on trending (which I think guarantees that YouTube won't demonetize it), and has half a million views so far, then this is probably going to make a decent sum for him. He published it yesterday, and it has ~524,000 views, so this site estimates potentially upwards of five thousand dollars (depending on engagement - +5,000 is a low end estimate) over the course of the year.
posted by codacorolla at 12:01 PM on February 14, 2018

Saw this on mltshp and I was like "I should post this on MetaFilter" and heh
posted by cortex at 12:26 PM on February 14, 2018

If I glued that thing together, I would not burn it. Not just because of all that work, but because the idea of having something made of something so ordinary combined to create so much potential energy, just lying around, is oddly inspirational.

I do find watching a sphere burn way more satisfying than this was.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 12:29 PM on February 14, 2018

reminds me of the time back in high school when a friend popped a tiny hole in a ping pong ball and then jammed it full of match heads. We waited until it got dark, then he hurled it from a balcony onto the driveway below. I seem to recall the result being pretty satisfying, but what I recall more is that maybe fifteen minutes later somebody started shouting about the garage being on fire ...

the fire department were called, though we mostly got it extinguished before they came. Efforts were made to claim we had no idea what could have started it ... until one of the fire crew offered up a couple of un-burned match-heads.
posted by philip-random at 12:48 PM on February 14, 2018

As a southern California resident it is hard to watch that with trees in the background without obsessing over whether the trees smouldered and burned later.
posted by davejay at 1:06 PM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm wondering if the interior got very hot at all.
posted by Splunge at 1:07 PM on February 14, 2018

Tinder vs. Match.com
posted by Kabanos at 1:18 PM on February 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

He looks so happy in that picture where he is carrying the ball.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:23 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

one of those weird fruits that have that sort of texture inside


Perhaps the Fruit Of The Hala Aka Puhala Tree?


Yes!!! Awesome, Nelson.

I swear, I would never have remembered that (it's doubtful I ever even knew its name), or even described it well without this video as a comparison. ("A thick rind with tightly packed, radially parallel fibers, all radiating from the center, but which do not extend to the center...?")
posted by darkstar at 1:23 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

the photo of him delightedly clutching the completed sphere to his bosom is really great.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:24 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

In the darkest timeline even the watermelons are flammable.
posted by ardgedee at 2:50 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really thought it would burn faster than that!
posted by sarcasticah at 4:13 PM on February 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Strike anywhere matches became difficult to get for a while, but there must have been a lot of fuss because they are available again. I think wooden matches may have a fire retardant partway down the wood in some nod to safety. When I light paper to start a fire, the match often goes out. Paper matches definitely have a fire retardant on the stem.

Not sure why hot glue instead of wood glue or even white glue. It's pretty immediate, but hot glue is a pain.

I loved the video. So much. The smoking black ball, esp. Kudos.
posted by theora55 at 5:23 PM on February 14, 2018

This is a prophecy of the fate that awaits us all.
posted by aramaic at 6:57 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Beautiful.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:00 PM on February 15, 2018

I'll take this opportunity to link The Fire Cycle.
posted by a halcyon day at 2:13 PM on February 15, 2018