Color Flame Birthday Candle Physics: the colored parts of these candle flames are due to excitation of specific chemical elements mixed into the wax. When viewed through a diffraction grating some of the prominent emission frequencies (electrons jumping between quantum energy levels) can be seen as “ghost” images to the side as the grating separates the light into the spectrum emitted by each flame. Most notably the yellow candle has a strong yellow/orange emission line from sodium, the red cand