'It's called sublimation.' 🔥 engineering
If you haven't seen the viral TikTok and Twitter videos showing users burning snow to cement claims about"fake snow," you soon will. Obviously, the rumors of snow's replacement are grossly exaggerated.
The viral videos show what naturally happens when a human holds the flame of a lighter or match directly against the surface of a snowball. But scientific explanations haven't dissuaded everyone, since the videos have gained millions of views in a very short time.
Smartphone owners who are confused online also think China is part of a Bill Gates conspiracy — claiming the country has sent fake snow to the U.S. to convince people thatThe argument behind the melting snow video posters goes something like this: When heated, snow melts into water. Since there is no water, it isn't really snow.
However, this isn't fake snow. Firstly, if it were something we'd find in say, a mall, the thick black smoke would set off fire alarms. And if the viral video posters wanted to test the snow, they should have left the snow at room temperature — since this is how snow typically melts on its own. But by raising snow's temperature to that of a burning flame — way, way hotter than a summer day — the snow turns immediately into water vapor.This is a process called sublimation, where a warming solid material appears to"skip" a state and go straight to gas .