Far off Flame | Bengali
Channel: Arvind Gupta
Date: 23/02/2016

Summers in India brings its own miseries - power cuts. So, during night time you might have to light a candle.  What really burns in a candle? Is it the cotton wick, the wax or the gaseous vapors of wax that burns? 
We will understand this better with the activity of the jumping flame. You will need a match box and a few candles. PERFORM THIS EXPERIMENT UNDER ADULT SUPERVISON. When you light a candle for the first time you have to take the burning matchstick very close to the candle wick. Next time the candle will light up even when the burning matchstick is a little away. The extinguished matchstick will be exuding some white smoke which will soon catch fire and light up. The white smoke is actually paraffin vapor full of hydrocarbons and it catches fire quickly.
In this experiment keep two candles touching each other. Light both candles and then extinguish one. The moment the smoke from the extinguished candle touches the fire of the other candle it will light up. And this will lead to a very fascinating jumping flame. It means that what burns in a candle is the wax vapor. And as soon as this vapor, which you see as smoke, touches the burning candle it lights up. So in this game it’s very hard to blow out candles because they light up automatically. So have fun playing with the jumping flame.
Hope you enjoyed playing with the jumping flame. What will happen if we blow in the wrong direction and miss our action?  In such a case you might see the flame shifting. Why is the flame shifting? 

This work is supported by IUCAA (www.iucaa.in) and TATA Trust (www.tata.com/aboutus/sub_index/Tata-trusts)

Credits:,Ashok Rupner, Shivaji Mane, Jyoti Hiremath, Arvind Gupta, Vidula Mhaiskar

Dubbed in Bengali by Krishnanjan Mondal from Pratham's Science Learning Program TATA Trust: Education is one of the key focus areas for Tata Trusts, aiming towards enabling access of quality education to the underprivileged population in India. To facilitate quality in teaching and learning of Science education through workshops, capacity building and resource creation, Tata Trusts have been supporting Muktangan Vigyan Shodhika (MVS), IUCAA's Children’s Science Centre, since inception. To know more about other initiatives of Tata Trusts, please visit www.tatatrusts.org