Fundamentals of Physics

What caused the gurneys to catch fire?

The answer is in this chapter.

Often, a burn victim is treated while lying on a gurney in an enclosed chamber filled with oxygen-enriched air. Once a treatment session is over, a hospital worker pulls the gurney and patient from the chamber onto a trolley, to be rolled away. On at least two occasions, the gurney caught fire at the end that was last to leave the chamber. Obviously, a burning gurney holding a patient already suffering from burns is a dangerous situation, and obviously fires burn easily in air rich in oxygen, but the question remains:

25-1 What Is Physics?

One goal of physics is to provide the basic science for practical devices designed by engineers. The focus of this chapter is on one extremely common example—the capacitor, a device in which electrical energy can be stored. For example, the batteries in a camera store energy in the photoflash unit by charging a capacitor. The batteries can supply energy at only a modest rate, too slowly for the photoflash unit to emit a flash of light. However, once the capacitor is charged, it can supply energy at a much greater rate when the photoflash unit is triggered—enough energy to allow the unit to emit a burst of bright light.

The physics of capacitors can be generalized to other devices ...