It is flammable. If you put it in a squirter bottle and sprayed some in a metal cup, put the cup upside down, and lit it, the cup would be pushed up. Engines basically do this specially designed metal cups called pistons. The pistons are aligned in a way where each time they are pushed up they spin a shaft. Then fancy engineering makes it so these explosions that push the pistons up can happen 1000s of times per second.
FutureNobel t1_iy6t64z wrote
Reply to ELI5: how does gasoline work like it’s just a liquid how does it power cars?? by [deleted]
It is flammable. If you put it in a squirter bottle and sprayed some in a metal cup, put the cup upside down, and lit it, the cup would be pushed up. Engines basically do this specially designed metal cups called pistons. The pistons are aligned in a way where each time they are pushed up they spin a shaft. Then fancy engineering makes it so these explosions that push the pistons up can happen 1000s of times per second.