system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does a combustion reaction always need to have an organic compound and oxygen gas as the reactants and water and Carbon dioxide as the product?

What if there's no organic compound present in the reaction? Is that considered already as not a combustion reaction?
gpt
To an extent it depends on what you mean by "combustion".  If you take a "man on the street" interpretation of an intense reaction with visible "flames", there are plenty of examples that fit the description.  An obvious set of examples are the way certain metals will burn in air, for example magnesium.  The question is a bit difficult to answer scientifically, though, because "combustion" is not a terribly well defined term, and similar reactions can occur in different chemicals that in one case resemble combustion and in another case do not, but they are chemically similar.