Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
The Egg in the Bottle Revisited:
Air Pressure and Amontons’ Law (Charles’ Law)
Louis H. Adcock
Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Wilmington,Wilmington, NC 28403-3297
“In any [ideal] gas whose volume and mass are kept
constant, the same rise in temperature produces the same
increase in pressure” (1). This is Amontons’ law. It is sometimes
referred to as Charles’ law of pressures (2) or simply as
Charles’ law (3) or Gay-Lussac’s law (4, 5), though the term
Charles’ law is usually reserved for the temperature–volume
relationship and Gay-Lussac’s law for his law of combining
volumes.
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Guillaume Amontons discovered in 1699 that for a con-
stant volume of air, the pressure increased by one-third when
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the air was heated from room temperature to that of boiling
water. He also inferred from Boyle’s law (P ∝ 1/V at constant
temperature and mass) that if the pressure is held constant then
the volume would increase by that same amount. Lambert
(1779) used Amontons’ results to calculate absolute zero as
᎑293.5 °C (6 ).
A classic demonstration of the effects of air pressure com-
bined with Amontons’ law involves putting a hard-boiled egg
in a bottle whose opening is slightly smaller than the circum-
ference of the egg. An even more spectacular demonstration
is getting the egg back out intact. This demonstration is
included in many popular books of chemical experiments
aimed at young readers.
The Demonstration
Needed
1 narrow-mouth 500-mL Erlenmeyer flask (or appro-
priate bottle)
1 medium hard-boiled egg (peeled)
1 heat gun (hair dryer)
Procedure
First, demonstrate that the egg cannot be pushed into
the flask. Point out that the “empty” flask is actually full of
air; and since this air has no way out of the flask, it resists
any pressure you exert on the egg.
Next, clamp the flask to a ring stand and place the heat
gun beneath the flask. Heat the flask with the heat gun for
three minutes. Turn off the heat gun and immediately place
the egg on the mouth of the flask. As the flask cools, outside
air pressure forces the egg into the flask. When the flask was
heated the temperature in the flask reached 63 °C. Using
Ammontons’ law the difference in pressure can be calculated.
P1 and T1 refer to the temperature and pressure in the heated
flask and P2 and T2 to those quantities when the flask is
cooled to room temperature:
P1/T1 = P2/T2
where P1 = 760 torr; T1 = 336 K; T2 = 296 K. Then P2 = 670
torr, and ∆P = 90 torr (11% decrease).
Turning the flask upside down and shaking or hitting it
with the heel of your hand will not dislodge the egg. Now
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 75 No. 12 December 1998 • Journal of Chemical Education
turn the flask upside down so that the egg falls into the neck
of the flask, clamp the inverted flask to the ring stand, and
heat the bottom of the flask. The egg will pop out. A more
dramatic method is to tilt your head back and blow strongly
up into the flask. Be ready to catch the egg in your hand as
the increased air pressure inside the flask forces the egg out. If
the flask is clean, you can eat the egg. Kolb et al. (7) suggest a
simple never-fail method for removing the egg: add a spoonful
of baking soda, pour in a little vinegar, and swirl. The carbon
dioxide thus formed causes the egg to pop out of the inverted
bottle.
Discussion
How does the egg in the bottle demonstration work?
Heating the flask causes the air inside to expand, forcing some
of the gas molecules out of the flask. As long as the air is
heated, the pressure of the fewer but hotter molecules inside
is equal to that of the cooler more numerous molecules out-
side. Blocking the opening of the flask with the egg does not
allow the expelled molecules of gas to return. Thus as the
flask cools down, the reduced number of molecules inside do
not exert enough pressure to equal the outside pressure. The
greater external pressure forces the egg into the bottle.
There are many ways to drive air out of the bottle. The
demonstration is often performed by placing burning paper
inside a bottle and putting the egg over the bottle’s mouth
when the fire burns out (8–12). Gardner (13) used a match.
Arthur (14 ) used alcohol-soaked cotton, and Markow (15)
heated the flask with a Bunsen burner. Mandell (16 ) added
boiling water to a ketchup or baby bottle and poured the water
out quickly before placing the egg over the bottle’s mouth.
Ford (8), Gardner (13), and Herbert (10) cite the partial
vacuum inside the bottle as the reason the egg is forced into
the bottle. Gardner (13) and Herbert (10) state that the air
cools and contracts [?] to produce the vacuum. Church (11)
states “When the air cooled, it shrunk and took up a lot less
space.” This is impossible, since a gas will occupy the same
volume (that of the flask) no matter what the temperature.
Mandell (16 ) attributes the reduced air pressure to the con-
densation of residual steam.
Kolb et al. (7), Van Cleave (9), and Walpole (12) state
that as the paper burns, it removes most of the oxygen from
the air inside the jar. The lack of this gas reduces the pressure
of the air inside the jar. Since the combustion of cellulose
(C6H 10O5)x actually produces more moles of gaseous prod-
ucts than there are moles of oxygen consumed, this is not
the correct explanation, as De Lorenzo (17 ) and Moran (18)
pointed out and Kolb (19) (in a letter of reply) concurred:
(C6H10O5) x + 6x O2(g) = 6x CO2(g) + 5x H 2O(g)
Arthur correctly states that heating causes the gas to ex-
pand and that part of it escapes from the bottle. As the re-
1567
Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
maining air cools, the pressure inside is decreased. Markow
doesn’t give a detailed explanation, but states that this is an
excellent demonstration of Charles’ law.
Since heating the air in the flask well above room tem-
perature enables the egg to be placed inside the flask, it seems
logical that cooling the flask well below room temperature
should have a similar effect. Place the egg over the mouth of
the flask and place both egg and flask in a freezer. Within
three minutes, the egg is forced inside the flask. (Alterna-
tively, the flask could be placed in a salt–ice mixture (᎑ 4 °C),
but this method is slow and not always successful). At room
temperature, the molecules of gas exert a pressure equal to
the external pressure. When the flask is cooled with the egg
in place, the cooler air inside exerts a lower pressure and the
egg is forced into the flask.
If the flask is cooled in the freezer for 30 minutes, the
egg is placed over the mouth of the flask, and the entire as-
sembly is placed back inside the freezer, the egg will not be
forced into the flask even after 10 minutes. (If left much
longer than 10 minutes, the egg will begin to freeze and lose
its elasticity.)
The freezer temperature was ᎑11 °C. Using Amontons’
law, the decrease in pressure can be calculated as done above
in the case of heating the flask: P 2 = 678 torr; ∆P = 87 torr
(11% decrease).
For people concerned about the high cholesterol content
of eggs, the same experiment can be used to peel a banana
(Drotar, ref 20). Use a 1-L flask and a banana whose diam-
eter is a little larger than the diameter of the flask’s neck. Cut
a 1.5-inch length off the banana, peel and all. Run the ex-
periment but instead of the egg, place the banana section over
the flask opening so that the peel overhangs the edge a little
bit. The higher air pressure outside the flask will force the
soft pulp into the flask leaving the peel outside. Drotar used
the burning paper method in this experiment, but incorrectly
stated that the cooling air occupies less space and thus has a
reduced pressure.
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1568 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 12 December 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
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