Create a Vacuum Day

What the day is

Create a Vacuum Day is observed on February 4. It has no documented origin, and its name allows two quite different readings. One is the household one: get out the vacuum cleaner and tidy up. The other is the scientific one: a vacuum is a space with almost nothing in it, and the day invites a curious look at how people learned to make one.

Either way, the day is a light-hearted one, and nobody is certain who first put it on the calendar.

Origin and background

The cleaning side has a clear history. The first powered vacuum cleaner was patented in Britain by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901, and it was so big it was pulled on a horse-drawn cart and operated outside buildings, with hoses run through the windows. In 1907 an American janitor, James Murray Spangler, built a portable electric one, and his relative William Hoover bought the rights and turned it into a household product.

The scientific side is older. Ancient thinkers argued over whether true empty space could exist, and Aristotle held that it could not. In 1643 Evangelista Torricelli showed with a glass tube of mercury that a space with nothing in it could form above the liquid, which led to the barometer. In 1654 the German scientist Otto von Guericke demonstrated the force of air pressure in a famous public experiment: after he pumped the air out of two copper hemispheres pressed together, teams of horses could not pull them apart.

Outer space is the closest thing to a natural vacuum, although even there a few atoms drift in every cubic meter.

How to take part

• Vacuum a room, and empty the canister or replace the bag and filter while you are at it.
• Try a simple vacuum experiment with a suction cup, and see how firmly air pressure holds it to a smooth wall.
• Read about the Magdeburg hemispheres and watch a demonstration online.
• Take a look at a vacuum-sealed container or a thermos, which relies on a vacuum to hold heat.
• Create a different kind of empty space: clear a drawer, a shelf or a desk.