Chemistry on flame colors

[birchburch]

can someone further explain to me why and how flames change their color?

we did this experiment wherein a cotton ball was soaked with ethanol and a particular solution, and for every cotton ball, a different color came out.

[Peter Pedant]

For sodium compounds, if theflame is hot enough, it is the Na+, whcih is being heated or excited and giving out the yellow colour

(rather unexciting - copper is better, a witch's flame according to coutnry folk, and rubidium gives a deep red (ruby?) colour)

and for sodium, the yellow colour is the same qavelength as the yellow of sodium lights
(which I am afraid you are gonna have to look up)

[jake-the-peg]

Different atoms have different 'orbits' that the electrons can take.

When they are excited (heated) those electrons jump from one orbit to another and then drop back down.

As they drop back down they give off light - the colour of the light depends on how big the jump is.