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Fireworks Research Paper

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Every Fourth of July I have watched the fireworks and wondered how they work. It turns out that each firework is just a precisely formed combination of chemicals and fuel, that is carefully gauged to generate a particular effect.

Fireworks produce three conspicuous forms of energy: bright light, heat, and a huge release of sound. The colors that we see are created by heating metal salts, like sodium nitrate or calcium chloride, that produce certain colors. The atoms of each element absorb energy and release it as light of specific colors. This happens because when an atom absorbs energy it rearranges its electrons from the ground state, up to an excited state. The ground state is when the electrons are in their lowest-energy state. The excited

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