Here is what you need:

•  Magnifying Glass (The bigger the better)
• A sheet of paper (pencil shavings or sawdust will work too)
• A sunny day

Method:

First of all, you should do this at noon for best results, although it should work between 11am – 3pm. 

Go outside and put whatever you are burning on the ground or a table or something. Get your magnifying glass an aim it towards the sun from the paper’s angle. You should see a light on the pile; that is from the sun. You may also notice that it is different colours, those are the colours of the rainbow, as the glass acts like a prism, splitting light. The ultraviolet rays and heat are still there. Raise the magnifying glass higher until the light becomes a little (bright!) dot on the paper and stay still.

With a big (4″) magnifying glass, the paper should light in about 5-10 seconds, the smaller the magnifying glass, the longer it takes.

Scoop:

When you focus the ultraviolet light (which is parallel, if you did it at noon) onto the piece of paper, it heats up rapidly producing enough heat to ignite the paper. Had this been done at about 5 o’clock, the sun’s rays wouldn’t be parallel, but diagonal, not producing enough heat to set the paper on fire. Not all diagonal rays aren’t enough; at about 3pm, it is easy to light something, even with the light being diagonal.

Tips and dangers:

• When you have the magnifying glass at a certain angle, there is a colour for the light. When you change that angle, the colour changes. Since the colour red has the longest wavelength, try to change the angle to get the colour red (which is pink since you are doing this in the sun) to get the best results.
• This shouldn’t take any longer than 10-15 seconds maximum to at least execute some smoke. If it does, you are probably doing it wrong.
• The ultraviolet light from the sun is very dangerous; do NOT look straight into the sun with or without the magnifying glass or focus the light on your skin as you might get skin cancer.
• Don’t mount the magnifying glass to something, aim it to the paper and leave. The paper could eventually light and start a fire.

Thank you for reading my guide and if you liked this article, please remember to click on that “I like It” button. Good luck burning things!