Smoke ring

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Smoke Ring is also a novel by Larry Niven.

Human blown smoke ring.

A smoke ring is a ring formed by expelling smoke through a small opening. It is usually created by blowing smoke from the mouth, while smoking. It usually takes a lot of practice to learn how to do it.

The ring occurs when a mass of fast-moving fluid (the air in the lungs) is pushed through a roughly spherical mass of fluid (the air in the mouth), forming a vortex ring in the air. The role of the smoke is only to make the flow pattern of the air visible.

Smoke ring from a smoke chamber

There are three different ways of making a smoke ring with the mouth. Although all require the formation of an 'O' with the mouth, they differ in the way the smoke is physically expelled. The first technique is to let smoke into the mouth, then gently flick the tongue to expel a short burst of smoke. The second is to let smoke into the mouth, then while pushing the jaw out, slowly open and close the jaw to push smoke out. The third is to form the 'O' with the lips, then gently say just the very first millisecond of 'Oh'. The third technique differs from the previous two in that one does not need to fill up the mouth with smoke beforehand because the smoke is actually being expelled from the lungs, not the mouth. It should be noted that most smokers blow rings using some combination of these three techniques.

Similarly, rings of bubbles can be formed underwater by blowing air. Scuba divers often do this, and dolphins have also been observed performing this trick.

A related trick, often done in conjunction with smoke rings, is the French inhale.

Smoke rings do also happen sometimes at fire eater presentations, conventional explosions and were observed in turn of atomic bomb ignitions.

A smoke ring is also the name for the pink ring that forms around the edges of meat prepared by Texas barbecue, caused by myoglobin in the meat reacting with carbon monoxide to form a heat stable pigment.