I got so excited when looking through options for science experiments to do with my daughter and found this one. It was an older book without pictures (this becomes important later). Apparently, you are supposed to be able to (in layman’s terms) drop something on fire into the bottle, set the egg on top of the bottle, and the egg gets sucked in.
Here’s the specific details and directions (plus the part where I went wrong):
What you will need:
- a glass bottle (will go into this more later)
- 1 hard boiled egg that has been peeled
- vegetable oil
- a small sheet of paper
- a match or lighter
This was an experiment for my daughter, so James the train had to take part
Directions:
1) Rub the rim of the jar with oil. Don’t skimp, get it nice and greased.
2) Fold the piece of paper and light it on fire.
3) Immediately, drop the lit paper into the glass jar and set the egg on top of the jar. The smaller end of the egg should be pointing down.
4) After a short bit, the egg should get sucked inside the bottle.
Here is the science behind it – When the lit piece of paper is set inside the bottle, the air inside begins to heat up and expand. Apparently, the warm air will push against the egg as it tries to escape, causing the egg to vibrate slightly. When the fire goes out, the air inside the bottle cools, and creates a suction as the cooler air in the bottle takes up less space. This suction is what is supposed to force the air into the bottle.
Now, here’s where I goofed.
I just assumed any bottle would work, but NO! Check out these videos and see if you notice a difference in the size of rim:
THE EGG IS ONLY SLIGHTLY BIGGER THAN THE BOTTLE’S RIM!!!!!!!!!!
That’s a big difference from:
Still, I did get the egg to go in a little:
And it did make the egg look cool:
We’re going to try again. We’re just going to make sure that the next bottle we use has a bigger rim.