Thursday, June 3, 2010

Levitating Lemon

There are two major things that happen in this experiment. Combustion, and air pressure effect. First, as the gas heats up and cools down it expands and contracts. As the three matches are lit the air inside the glass gets hot. then all the oxygen in the glass is exhausted, so the matches go out and the air that's inside the glass cools down. Since cooler air takes up less space than hot air, the water gets sucked up into the extra volume space. Secondly, when the matches burn they are consuming oxygen from the air within the glass. this is a result of combustion, when the volume of gas within the glass changes. because of the fact that water is a liquid and carbon dioxide is a gas, there is less gas in the the glass so it causes the water to be sucked up to fill the extra volume in the glass.

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