Just as a reminder, the College of the Mainland Library will be closed on Friday, July 4th. As you make your Independence Day plans, here are a few neat sites about fireworks! Chemical of the Week Have you ever been to an aerial fireworks show at an amusement park, baseball game, Fourth of July celebration, or on New Year's Eve and wondered about how all the impressive colors and sounds are produced? People everywhere enjoy the fantastic explosions and the brilliant light displays of fireworks. However, these spectacles are much more than just a form of entertainment. Each firework launched into the sky is a precisely formed assembly of chemicals and fuel, carefully calibrated to produce a particular effect – a red chrysanthemum spray accompanied by a powerful explosion, or a blue strobe, for example. Understanding how the contents of a firework produce the impressive variety of colors, forms, and sound intensities requires only a simple understanding of chemical reactions. Read ...