Smoke from fingertips?

Factual Questions
1

I was reading an old science experiment book, and one of the experiments was about creating smoke from your fingertips. The experiment went like this:

Get a box of matches, and peel the paper with the striking surface off. Peel the layers of paper away untill you get just the strike surface and very little of the paper backing. Place it on a metal surface (with the red phosphorus side down), and light the paper (well it doesn’t burn really so you have to heat it with a flame). After the paper is burned a resin like residue should be left on the metal. Then, you wipe up some of it onto your fingers and rub your fingers together. When you start rubbing smoke should start coming off of your fingers in wisps. Well, I tried it and it does work. I am wondering, what is the residue, and why does it ‘smoke’ when friction is applied?

2

We used to do this when I was a kid, and it does work. No idea why, but thanks for the memories. I’d try it right now, but I only have butane lighters. Sigh. :slight_smile:
Peace,
mangeorge

Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
Dance like nobody’s watching! …(Paraphrased)

3

The stuff you put on your fingers is a sort of gooey residue. When you rub your fingers, the goo dries out and stretches into filaments; these are very thin and have a low density, so they tend to break off and float away on air currents. If you do it right, it looks like wisps of smoke are floating from your fingers.

Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.

4

I wanna try that!
Too bad I have no metal surfaces around me- only soft, padded ones.

Life is short. Make fun of it.

5

I remember going to magic shops when I was a kid and buying little tubes of goo that used to do this trick. Must have been the same stuff. Wonder what it’s called? Magic smoking goo, I guess.

6

I used to buy those little tubes of goo, too. Don’t remember what it was called, but it stank to high heaven, as I recall.

7

And how soon do your fingertips fall off afterward?

Ray (non-smoker)

8

NanoRay, you should know better! They don’t fall off, they get tumors! Smoking causes cancer, not rot. :wink:

9

’
I remember going to magic shops when I was a kid and buying little
tubes of goo that used to do this trick. Must have been the same
stuff. Wonder what it’s called? Magic smoking goo, I guess.’

Me too. That stuff took forever to get off, too.

Also, don’t ya all forget that red phosphorous is extremely toxic.

10

Thanks handy, and all of this time I have been cleaning the dried residue off by licking it off. Thanks man, you saved my life! :slight_smile:

11

Yep, sure enough dude, right from the web:
‘phosphorus
§, nonmetallic element, discovered c.1674 by
Hennig Brand. It is an extremely poisonous,red,
yellow to white, waxy, solid substance’