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Hohoho -> RE: Polo's are they a rip off? (2/28/2006 8:42:19 AM)
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"If they made those today, in spear o mint, I'd be all over 'em."
I'm a Wint O Green gal.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/question505.htm
All hard sugar-based candies emit some degree of light when you bite them, but most of the time, that light is very faint. This effect is called triboluminescence.
But when you bite into a Wint-O-Green Life Saver, a much greater amount of visible light can be seen.
This brighter light is produced by the wintergreen flavoring. Methyl salicylate, or oil of wintergreen, is fluorescent, meaning it absorbs light of a shorter wavelength and then emits it as light of a longer wavelength. Ultraviolet light has a shorter wavelength than visible light. So when a Wint-O-Green Life Saver is crushed between your teeth, the methyl salicylate molecules absorb the ultraviolet, shorter wavelength light produced by the excited nitrogen, and re-emit it as light of the visible spectrum, specifically as blue light -- thus the blue sparks that jump out of your mouth when you crunch on a Wint-O-Green Life Saver.
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