Why does the wick of a burning candle shorten after you've blown it out?

Dave - The way a candle works is as follows: You've got a bath of molten wax. This is pulled up the wick by surface tension and then that evaporates. When a candle is burning normally, it's this vaporised wax which is combining with oxygen and burning away. The wick will stay there pretty much on its own and sit there. If you blow the candle out, you'll get a load of smoke and that's actually the wax vapour recondensing into little droplets of solid wax in the air. But the end of the wick can still carry on burning. It's still quite warm, and that will continue burning with oxygen. It's not actually the wick itself burning but the string inside the wick, and that will smoulder away for a bit like any bit of wood might. It smoulders for a while and eventually goes out, but it's not hot enough to re-ignite the wax.