I hate every graph I found on Google for “activation energy” so our thumbnail for this essay is just gonna be Heat some paper to 300ºF (150ºC) and mostly what happens is you have some hot paper. Heat some paper to 500ºF (260ºC) and what you have is a fire. You can use that fire to start other fires, and there’s a self-sustaining thing happening that will go on until all of the locally available fuel is consumed. If you’re trying to push a table or dresser across a floor, and it takes fifty pounds of force to get it to start moving, it probably only takes forty or thirty pounds of force to keep it moving. Static friction is almost always greater than kinetic friction. Most neurons in your brain are connected to something like a thousand other neurons. Those other neurons are firing, and firing, and firing, and at some point enough of them fire in close-enough proximity, and that causes this neuron to fire.…