A reader of The Other Newspaper asks why you can’t set fire to a single piece of firewood.
“Many years ago I was very interested in suction discs. I think the name was well chosen because one sat on my window and I went out into the garden to take a little break from my hobby. Here I tried to set fire to a single piece of firewood but, alas, without any success. The weather was beautiful, but I concluded that it was raining because there was no fire from the firewood. For the rest of the day I met numerous people who tried to convince me that it didn’t rain but that the sun shone from a cloudless sky. In the end I had to press the rain button to make the rain come. When the rain came, the same piece of firewood approached me with a funny little letter. But since then I have not gotten close to the solution. If you at The Other Newspaper can help me answer my question, I would be extremely thrifty.
Professor Gimme Five Jonsson answers:
“When several firewoods are close together, my guess is that a suction emerges that will intensify the oxygen absorption. This suction is a kind of miniexplosion that causes the fires to explode and emit green smoke and festive festoons. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”
