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?
I think this gets a bit more complicated. A balloon pops due to the rubber reaching its elastic limit as the internal pressure pushes outward against a lower pressure environment
But in a confined space like a silo, the internal pressures will all be pushing into, and pushed by, eachother. Each balloon only has so much room to expand into, if theyre fairly elastic balloons they can fill that space without surpassing the rubbers elastic limit. It would be a pretty good example of voronoi noise actually.
So, instead of imagining the weight one balloon can support before popping, imagine how much weight a thin section of balloon rubber can handle before rupturing, like under a hydraulic press.
Thanks for putting this into words that make sense. I was trying to describe it as a packing problem and not quite making it to fully sensical.
I’m wondering if the balloons at the bottom would all end up as cubes or something and not be able to pop as every surface would be supported and therefore unable to stretch and break. Think of the straight borders that form when bubbles bunch together
Look up voronoi noise, its exactly this scenario, circles or spheres in random assortment expanding to form straight edges against eachother. Its a pattern that often shows up in nature for that reason.
Yes, this is the sort of thing I’m thinking. Would then the balloons be unable to pop since they’d be perfectly supported? I feel the pressure in adjacent balloons would equalise so no one balloon could grow enough to break.
Hard to say. With weights being distributed randomly i dont know if it would naturally equalize like that, or if there might be random pockets of increased or decreased pressure, or something might slip. Variables like weak spots in the rubber, friction and static. Needs testing
Given: a balloon will pop when pressed with enough weight Given: a balloon filled with air has a positive weight
Stack enough balloons on top of a balloon, it’ll pop.
Though…. Given the added complexity of our atmosphere not being homogenous, you might have balloons popping from expansion from going too high before you get them being crushed below.
This is a question for Randall Munroe. I wish I knew how to summon him.
With scones maybe?
Is this question assuming air pressure and gravity loss at higher altitudes, or is it assuming that the full structure would have a consistent air pressure and gravity? If so, would it be from sea level?
A standard party balloon is around 3 grams if I had to guesstimate, so you could probably figure out how much weight it would take to burst a single balloon, and divide that by 3 grams to get the number of balloons. The main problem with that is the varying amounts that buoyancy and gravity would provide the upward or downward forces.
What’s the weight of one balloon?
What’s the amount of force/pressure needed to pop a balloon?
I don’t see them popping beyond the potential friction of rubber on rubber.
The main issue seems to be you have a compressible fluid undergoing compression due to the weight of the rubber in the balloons. As you went down, the balloons would likely look less deflated until they looked not inflated at all. At that point, you might start to get the rubber from the balloons bonding together. As the mass shrinks, you are probably going to get a friction force of the rubber against the silo wall causing shear within the system. This is what will likely cause individual balloons to pop, but at this point the whole mass will be pushed together to a point to not let air escape.
I miss mythbusters
Yes.
Damn that’s a good question.
Depends on the stretchiness of the material. Even without a confined space, but in a theoretical magically fixed balloon tower, I’m going to say that they’d bounce forever. The reasoning being that at some point the bottom balloon would be fully stretched but since it can push against the second balloon, which is not yet fully stretched, it can make that stretch, so it wouldn’t necessarily burst. Continuing this feedback effect upwards it would mean the average balloon only needs to hold its own weight.