You might want to hold back on doing this one if you want your security deposit
back when you move.
Having a candle in a dorm room is just asking for trouble. It takes about ten
seconds for a candle to make the transition from decoration to toy... especially
when it's around people who don't have access to alternate, safer entertainment
sources (say, cable TV).
One large candle (about 2 inches in diameter and 8 inches tall), one can of
soda, one coathanger, and the always-necessary propane torch.
Anyone that has ever heard about a grain silo blowing up when a spark of
static electricity touched off the dust in the silo will appreciate this one.
Our plan of action was fairly direct:
Dump water into the now-flaming wax
The water jumps to a boil almost instantly. The suddenly-boiling water launches
all of the flaming wax up into the air, increasing the burning glob's surface area
and WHOOSH, it's Hiroshima revisited.
What Actually Happened
After scraping a decent amount of wax off of the candle, we hacked the can in
half and went to work creating a make-shift holder for the can from the coat
hanger. I don't really relish the idea of holding a can whose temperatures are
approaching that of the sun, so our newly created can-holder was put into action.
We began dumping flakes of wax into our little can-shaped miracle maker. After
filling half of the can with wax chunks, we brought the propane torch into play by
using it to bar-b-que the bottom of the can. The wax chips started to melt into a
little liquidy glop of stuff. The glop then proceeded to turn into a watery puddle
of stuff. We watched with eager anticipation.
It is probably important to mention that, at that moment in the experiment,
I still had hair on my body.
Once our soda can o' wax reached the point where it was hot enough to catch on
fire, we brought the propane torch out from underneath the can and pointed the
torch's flame directly into the wax. A few quick licks of flame over the surface
of the wax became a steady glow. We now had a can, filled with molten wax, that
was ON FIRE.
At this time, we shut off the lights in our room to add to the event. I
gingerly reached over the top of the flaming wax with a shot glass filled with
water. After a moment of hesitation, I dumped the water into the soda can.
I'm fairly certain that all of the energy that disappears into a black hole
popped into our room for a brief visit. A flaming mushroom cloud that was a good
five feet in diameter lauched upward from the can and sailed into the
ceiling. However, the power we had just unleashed wasn't yet satisfied. The ball
of flame did not disperse when it hit the ceiling, like we had originally planned,
but instead rolled across the ceiling like a scene from Backdraft. Good thing
the ceilings in our dorm were made of concrete. After cruising across the ceiling,
the flaming mass finally gave up when it hit the far wall of the room. This
whole process took roughly one second.
It is probably important to mention that, at that moment in the experiment, I
no longer had hair on my body.
We were, quite obviously, very proud of the mighty display of open flame we
had just pioneered. We were not, however, very happy about the somewhat obvious
blast mark that now existed in the middle of the ceiling. We set to work scrubbing
the ceiling, but our moods were not heightened by the six inches of smoke that
crept along the ceiling, or the fact that the temperature in the room had just
jumped a good 15 degrees.
Lessons Learned
