Thread: Can you get a tan from fire?

can someone help and tell me if you can actaully get a tan from fire? the sun is a big ball of fire afterall. cheers

Haha... Ok yes sometimes skin is actually burnt but, this is not a tan. A tan is when your skin is constantly under UVC or UVB radiation which is dangerous. In response your melanocytes produce more melanin (dark pigment) to absorb the dangerous radiation. This pigment makes your skin darker. So unless you have a very, very waked up fire you will not get a tan; you may get a burn though (which may be dark).

Does this help?

'So unless you have a very, very waked up fire '

yeah helped alot cheers, but wat did u meen by waked up fire?

Well, heat is a form of electromagnetic radiation (also known s light). Some heat such as fire is capable of being seen by our eyes. So fire is (obviously) another form of light. Light from a fire has a fairly low frequency. Frequency is dependent on the energy put into the reaction. Light from the sun (not all of course) has very high frequencies. This light (known as ultraviolet light) is very powerful. It can penetrate the layers of skin cells and damage the stem cells beneath, causing cancer. There are cells in the skin called melanocytes that produce the pigment melanin. When the skin is receiving lots of this high frequency light radiation from the sun it produces more melanin which absorbs the "bad" light.

A pigment absorbs all light other than what its color is. Black or other dark colors absorb nearly all types of radiation (the reflect no color). Whereas white absorbs no radiation and reflects everything.

Oops sorry... yes about that waked up fire...

What I mean about a waked up fire is a fire that produces these high frequency photons (light units). You need some serious energy for that.

One more thing. I said UVA and UVB are harmful but, I got it sorta backwards. I meant UVC and UVB. UVA can be harmful but not nearly as bad. The only diference between these is their frequency. The whole A, B, and C thing is just a way of catagorizing. I will edit my original post.

Originally Posted by MaVr1cK06

can someone help and tell me if you can actaully get a tan from fire? the sun is a big ball of fire afterall. cheers

the whole spectrum of the ElectroMagnetic Radiation is divided inot many sections according to their frequencies,...., from th highest to lowest frequency>>Gamma Rays, X-Rays, Ultraviolet(UV), Light(visible part of spectrum), Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves.
the Ultraviolet radiation is responsible for sun-tan, warm objects(below 500 C) only emit infrared, at about 500 C and above a body becomes red hot and emits IR as well as red light, at 1500 C they start emitting white light(i.e. all colors of the visible spectrum)......
fires(red) can only produce InfraRed and Red light, they do not emit UV so they cant cause sun-tans.....the answer is NO!

Originally Posted by MaVr1cK06

the sun is a big ball of fire afterall. cheers

it aint
its a ball of plasma
the uvb and uvc is made by the fusion
all sorts of energy come from it
so we get suntan haha
and fire is chem reaction
that produces heat and light n sound and all sorts of residue
so if u want a suntan...
just go to tanning place or go to see numerous nuclear explosions
but it would be expensive wasting about ???kg and??? lith. and det.
just for one suntan session?
one of the most wasteful things i ever thougt of

What if the fire is burning magnesium? Is that hot enough to give you a tan?

The sun is quite different to fire.

For one thing fire requires oxygen and usually releases energy that seperates carbon from the rest of the molecule (the ash of a fire).

The sun is fusing hydrogen which is creating that enourmous amount of energy.

Quite different to burning magnesium. The sun releases UV light etc but burning magnesium will not.