Ryan was a wealthy customer in a restaurant. Sitting in his table he asked a waiter for a juice glass, a dinner plate, water, a match, and a lemon wedge. The man poured enough onto the plate to cover it.
"If you can get the water on the plate into this glass without touching or moving this plate, I will give you $100," Ryan said, "You can use the match and the lemon to do this."
A few minutes later, the waiter walked away with $100 in his pocket.
How did the waiter get the water into the glass?
It works very easily. Try it yourself and/or take a look at the online videos. As an added treat, when quite a bit of the water has been drawn upward into the glass (indicating that a fairly good vacuum has been pulled) the water starts fizzing or boiling. This is not air, but rather water vapor leaving, just as with water that's boiled on a stove, only it's cool. The water vapor and oxygen starvation extinguish the flame. (A stubby candle gives an even better result).
The partial pressure of water vapor is making up for the loss of air pressure.
try it
