this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Like, say you had a grain silo or some theoretical structure that would allow you to fill the structure as high as you wanted, full of balloons, all inflated with regular air, not helium.

Is there a point where the balloons' collective miniscule weight would be enough to pop the balloons on the bottom? Or would they just bounce/float on top of each other forever and ever?

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[–] MrJameGumb 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the answer is yes, but I'm not a skilled enough mathematician to give you a great answer... The little bit of information I found online says that a standard size party balloon weighs about 0.14oz, and takes a little more than a pound of pressure to pop a very full balloon, so presumably it would take at the very least the weight of 114 balloons all pressing down on one balloon to come close to popping it. So if you had a very tall and very narrow enclosure where there are only a few balloons on the bottom layer then they would probably pop under the weight of just a few thousand balloons.

So the short answer is yes, but for a definitive answer you would need to know how fully each balloon is inflated, the thickness of the balloons, how many are on the bottom layer, what the ambient air pressure in the room is, the temperature, are you above or below sea level etc.

Once you had all that information you would then need to give it to someone better at math than I am to figure out lol

[–] errer 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you ever handled a balloon before? They can take way more than a pound of pressure…that’s like barely squeezing it.

[–] MrJameGumb 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fair enough, but I still think it's possible that it would take only 1-2 thousand balloons for them to start popping as long as there aren't too many on the bottom layer

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What about static electricity?