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Comment by mchahn | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why it is called vaping. You can see smoke come out. It uses a heater to burn the juice.

It's called vaping because the carrier liquid (propylene glycol) is being vaporized. There isn't supposed to be any smoke - if so, something is wrong.

I think the GP is confusing smoke with vapor.

To be honest I've only seen pot vapes. And I do see smoke, not vapor.

You are seeing vapor, not smoke.

I've never seen the pot type, but the propylene glycol type are all over Boston. What they release is definitely vapor, not smoke. (The vapor clouds act very differently than smoke clouds. They look and act like the steam clouds which emanate from manhole covers in cities, or from dry ice.)

Pot vapes definitely aren't supposed to put out smoke. With some vapes you could achieve this by cranking the heat all the way up, but it'd be a far worse experience than just smoking.

I guess some of the cheap $20 chinese ones like the "gpen" might not actually vaporize though.

I see a white cloud. Could that be vapor? I always thought vapors were invisible.

Yeah, that is vapor. Vapors aren't necessarily invisible, you can see the clouds in the sky too.

Might look similar, but it's a completely different experience for the user.

That's steam, no combustion happens

It's not steam, it's a vapor composed of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin (plus optional flavorings and nicotine). It's not "water vapor" as many seem to be spouting.

Specifically, it’s an aerosol. (Everything you said was correct, just expanding)

That’s... not true. On every level.

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