system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does the flame of a cigarette lighter aid visibility in a dark room, but the flame of a blowtorch has no effect?
gpt
Burning things like matches or a lighter isn't very efficient, it produces soot (carbon) which glows when heated.

A blowtorch is much more efficient. There's more heat in a blowtorch flame so it burns away the soot and thus has less material in the flame to glow and produce light.  


The glowing of material through heat is called incandescence, which is why we call old light bulbs incandescent bulbs because they would produce light through the heating of an element, incandescence.  


Some types of flame are going to produce more incandescent material than others, this effect will vary with temperature, fuel mixture and the atmosphere.  
We maximize the effect in light bulbs by filling them with inert gases (like, argon, neon, helium and krypton) to prevent the filament from catching fire.  
This way we get all the incandescent glow from heating the filament (like tungsten in this case) without it all burning away.