Step One: When you shatter the sugar crystals with your teeth, electrons (which are negatively charged) break free. Wintergreen sparking, it’s believed, is actually a three-step process. (Another example of TL is the spark you get when you tear the piece of tape off the end of a roll of photographic film.) Most students of the modern Life Saver classify sparking as a type of triboluminescence, which occurs when something is crushed or torn, the something in this case being the hard crystalline sugar that Life Savers contain. However, theoretical considerations lead us to believe that even under the most favorable conditions the sparks from the peppermints would not be very bright. Our failure in the latter department may perhaps be attributed to the fact that the peppermint Life Savers we had on hand were unbelievably ancient, and had consequently absorbed considerable moisture, which is said to inhibit sparking. Having completed our labors, we have arrived at the following conclusions: (1) wintergreen Life Savers will indeed produce spectacular if somewhat pint-sized clouds of blue flame when mashed vigorously between the molars. Accordingly, I have conducted a rigorous program of experiments, aided by the Straight Dope Kamikaze Research (“we laugh at death”) & Display Advertising Battalion, which will do anything if it will get them out of actually having to work for an hour. It is all very well for a layman to take her brother’s word on things like this, Dona, but professionals such as myself insist on checking out the situation firsthand.
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