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A sensitive flame is a gas flame which under suitable adjustment of pressure resonates readily with sounds or air vibrations in the vicinity. Noticed by both the American scientist John LeConte and the English physicist William Fletcher Barrett, they recorded the effect that a shrill note had upon a gas flame issuing from a tapering jet. The phenomenon caught the attention of the Irish physicist 
While not necessary to observe the effect, a higher flame temperature allows for easier observation. Sounds at lower to mid-range frequencies have little to no effect on the flame. However, shrill noises at high frequencies produce noticeable effects on the flame. Even the ticking of a pocket watch was observed as producing a high enough frequency to affect the flame.
YouTube clip UCL Phonetics Laboratory 1920s
* ttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v19/n476/abs/019122e0.html ''"The Bunsen Flame: a Sensitive Flame"'' - W. W. Haldare Gee - ''Nature'' (1878)br>Sensitive Flames, ''Popular Science'' (1874)
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the p ...
who gave a lecture on the process to the Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
in January 1867.
While not necessary to observe the effect, a higher flame temperature allows for easier observation. Sounds at lower to mid-range frequencies have little to no effect on the flame. However, shrill noises at high frequencies produce noticeable effects on the flame. Even the ticking of a pocket watch was observed as producing a high enough frequency to affect the flame.
See also
* PyrophoneExternal links
YouTube clip UCL Phonetics Laboratory 1920s
* ttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v19/n476/abs/019122e0.html ''"The Bunsen Flame: a Sensitive Flame"'' - W. W. Haldare Gee - ''Nature'' (1878)br>Sensitive Flames, ''Popular Science'' (1874)
References
{{reflist Combustion Waves