A candle at 1700 K glows almost entirely in infrared: peak 1704.6 nm, and only 0.37% of its power is visible. Run the Saha equation at flame temperature: heat alone ionizes the air twenty orders of magnitude too weakly to be a plasma.
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The Two Lights of Fire
An instrument, not an article: a Planck-law incandescence engine, an emission-spectrum bench for the flame's second light, and a live Saha plot that settles the plasma question. Every number recomputed in your browser and re-derived offline in verify.mjs, 21/21 assertions passing.