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🥚 + 🔥 = 👩‍🔬

Can you use matches to pull an egg into a bottle? A fun and easy DIY science experiment to do with your kids!

How to get an egg into a bottle

What do you need?

    • A hard boiled egg (peeled)
    • A glass bottle (make sure the bottle neck is not too narrow)
    • Some (±5) matches
 

Step-by-step

    1. Make sure the hard boiled egg is peeled, and that it doesn’t slide into the bottle too easily.
    2. Light the matches and put them (while burning) in the bottle.
    3. Put the egg on top of the bottle and wait!
 

How does it work?

Fire can only burn when it has access to oxygen.
The egg on top of the bottle keeps fresh oxygen from entering. Because of this, the matches will slowly fade out once most oxygen in the bottle is used up.
When the fire dies out, the leftover oxygen in the bottle cools down and shrinks. This means that the air pressure outside of the bottle to be bigger than the pressure inside, causing the bottle to be pushed/sucked into the bottle.
 
Ei in een fles / Egg in a bottle
Ei in een fles / Egg in a bottle
Ei in een fles / Egg in a bottle
Can you pull an egg into a bottle by using matches? A fun DIY experiment to do with your kids! Hoe kan je met lucifers een ei in een fles trekken? Een eenvoudig en leuk doe-het-zelf experiment om samen met je kinderen te doen!

Some tips:

  • If the neck of the bottle is too narrow, or the matches burn up too quickly, it can happen that your egg gets stuck somewhere halfway (as was the problem with our egg…). If this happens, just ask you kids if they can pull out the egg, and you’ll get a free egg-splosion to end your experiment!
  • The egg is still perfectly edible after the experiment. End the experiment with a small cooking session with your kids and make an egg salad together!
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