Try this: The great candle mystery

This week's activity has been around for a while, but it is

one of the most frequently misunderstood science
demonstrations that I know.

You will need

Birthday candles
Matches
Plasticine or blu-tak
A glass jar large enough to hold the candles.
A bowl
Water
Masking tape or "Invisible" tape
Pen
Three coins. They should all be the same type. I
find five cent coins work well.
An adult

Safety: This activity involves using matches and fire.

For any activity involving fire you must have an adult
present, plus water, a fire extinguisher and any other
safety equipment the adult or yourself feels is needed.
Take care that you only use fire in a safe place.

What to do
1. Put a strip of masking tape onto the side of the jar.
2. Stick a lump of plasticine in the middle of the bowl
and stand three candles in it.
3. Pour a couple of centimetres of water into the
bowl.
4. Light the candles and let them burn for a few
seconds.
5. Carefully place the jar over the candles.
6. After a while, the candles should go out. After the
candles have gone out, some water will be sucked
into the jar.
7. Mark the water level on the tape.
8. Take the jar off and wave at the end of it, so you
put some fresh air into the jar.
9. Repeat steps 3-6, but this time only light one
candle. If the water reached the wick the first time,
it may take a while to get burning again
10. Compare the water level this time with the
previous time.

The candles and water ready to have the

jar lowered onto them. The water has been
coloured so it will show up more easily in
the photo.

You can place the jar on coins if it fits too

tightly against the bowl.

If the jar fits perfectly against the bowl, you may find the
water can't get in. In this case, the jar will not fill with
water, but will be held against the bowl like a suction cup.
To stop this happening, place some small coins around the
candles so the jar rests on them, with a small gap to allow
the water through.

With only one candle

The water sucked up into the burning, much less
jar.
water is sucked up into
the jar.

What's happening?
Oxygen makes up about one-fifth of the air. When the
candles burn, they use oxygen from the air. When there is
no more oxygen in the air, they go out. The reason the
water is sucked up into the jar is a little more complicated.
One theory is that when the oxygen is used up, there is
one-fifth less air in the jar, so the water is sucked up. This
theory often appears on web sites or even in books, which
explain how this effect works. However, there are some
problems with this idea:

When fire burns, it combines oxygen in the air with

carbon and hydrogen in the candle, to make carbon
dioxide and water vapour. This means that
although there is less oxygen gas inside the jar, it
has been replaced with other gases. The exact
amounts of carbon dioxide and water are hard to
predict, because candle wax is made of a mixture
of different chemicals. In most of the chemicals in
candles, there are roughly two hydrogen atoms for
every carbon atom, which means roughly twothirds of the oxygen joins with carbon to make

carbon dioxide (two oxygen atoms and one carbon

atom) and one-third joins with hydrogen to make
water vapour (two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen
atom). Even if the water vapour condenses into
liquid water, this is not enough to account for all
the water being sucked up into the jar.
The fire uses up oxygen while it is burning, but the
water is only sucked up after the candles go out. If
the water was being sucked up because the oxygen
was being used up, it should start moving the
moment you put the jar over the candles and stop
when the candles go out.
One candle still uses up the same amount of
oxygen in the jar, it just takes longer to do it.
However, when you only use one candle, there isn't
as much water sucked up into the jar.

So why is the water sucked up? Another possible

explanation is how gases respond to a change of
temperature. When air is heated, it tries to expand, so it
takes up more space. When air cools down, it contracts, so
it takes up less space.
When you put the jar down over the candles, the fire
heated the air inside the jar. As it was heated, the air
expanded. If you put the jar down quickly, you may have
noticed some bubbles escaping the jar (if you put it down
slowly, the expanding air has time to escape out the
bottom of the jar before it hits the water). Once the candles
go out, the air in the jar cools down and contracts. The
water is then pushed in by the surrounding air as the gas
pressure inside the jar is lower due to there being less gas
molecules inside the jar than when you started the whole
procedure.
The reason that three candles had a greater effect than one
is because they heated the air in the jar to a higher
temperature.
There is one other factor at work too. Carbon dioxide
made by the fire can dissolve in the water, which would
reduce the amount of air in the jar. However, this appears
to only be a small effect, because the carbon dioxide is
made all the time, but the water is not sucked up until the
fire goes out. I have also found that if the jar seals
perfectly against the bowl, the air inside will still try to

contract, even if there is no water inside the jar.