Air weighs more than nothing

JudgeRightly

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No, it wasn't.

Yes, it was. Buoyancy is the answer to your question. When the air or liquid is removed from the chamber, the item on the scale loses any support that the fluid provided, and thus, the weight of the object that had originally been distributed outwards from the the item into the fluid around it now has no support from the air around it, thus "increasing" the downward pressure on the scale.

This is only possible because of gravity, which pulls the densest objects, be it fluids or solids, down more than it does lighter objects.

This is why the helium filled balloons float at the top of the chamber when there is air inside of it, but sink to the bottom when the air is removed, because helium is lighter than the mixture of gases we call "air," but when there is no mass beneath it, it sinks.

Water and gas are two different stages of matter.

Both are fluids, and behave as fluids do.
 

1Mind1Spirit

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Yes, it was. Buoyancy is the answer to your question. When the air or liquid is removed from the chamber, the item on the scale loses any support that the fluid provided, and thus, the weight of the object that had originally been distributed outwards from the the item into the fluid around it now has no support from the air around it, thus "increasing" the downward pressure on the scale.

This is only possible because of gravity, which pulls the densest objects, be it fluids or solids, down more than it does lighter objects.
I'm not disputing buoyancy.
There is no gravity pulling the air down.
In the first video I provided it's showing that the vacuum chamber lost buoyancy.
The live stream I posted in the closed thread gave a presentation on this starting at the 1 hour and 5 minute mark.
I'll repost it after this post.
Both are fluids, and behave as fluids do.
Yes only so far as they both react to a shear force.
Gravity is not a shear force.
 

1Mind1Spirit

Literal lunatic
This is why the helium filled balloons float at the top of the chamber when there is air inside of it, but sink to the bottom when the air is removed, because helium is lighter than the mixture of gases we call "air," but when there is no mass beneath it, it sinks.
The balloons sink because there is no buoyancy.
The balloons expand because there is more pressure in them because the helium is now trying to get to the less pressurized area.
When the balloons pop the helium does not puddle on the floor of the container.
 

JudgeRightly

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I'm not disputing buoyancy.

Buoyancy is a function of gravity.

Without gravity, there would be no net "upward" force, because there also wouldn't be any net "downward" force.

There is no gravity pulling the air down.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

In the first video I provided it's showing that the vacuum chamber lost buoyancy.

No, it didn't. It showed that air had weight to it.

Removing the air took the weight off of the scale, resulting in a net negative downward force on the scale.

The live stream I posted in the closed thread gave a presentation on this starting at the 1 hour and 5 minute mark. I'll repost it after this post.

No one wants to watch a video that's 2 hours long.

Please give a summary.

Yes only so far as they both react to a shear force.
Gravity is not a shear force.

Gravity compresses the fluids. Fluids can't bear any shear stress, but that doesn't mean they don't experience shear forces.

Such forces are negligible (especially on a small scale), especially compared to the force exerted by a gas that causes it to expand.

Gravity causes the fluid pressure to be greater the further downward you go. Same with solids, for that matter (for example, here on earth, pressures at a depth of about 5 miles below the surface of the earth cause rock to deform like highly compressed, extremely stiff putty; in other words, a granite cliff on earth could never be higher than 5 miles high, because the rock near the bottom of the cliff would begin to become crushed, and pushed out from underneath the rock above).


Supra.

The balloons sink because there is no buoyancy.

Right. There's nothing (heavier) to be pulled underneath it. More accurately, there is nothing underneath it to support it with upwards force.

Gravity is what is pulling it at 9.8m/s2 downwards. (The "s2" indicates acceleration, not linear speed.)

If gravity did not exist, then there would not be any downward force pulling the balloons to the bottom of the chamber.

The balloons expand because there is more pressure in them because the helium is now trying to get to the less pressurized area.

Not quite.

They expand because there's nothing pushing back on the gas inside the balloon. It's a balancing act. When you blow up a balloon using your lungs, you are pushing air into the balloon with greater force than the atmosphere outside the balloon is exerting AND that the balloon itself is exerting.

The more air you put into the balloon, the more it expands, because the pressure inside the balloon is greater than the pressure of BOTH the balloon itself trying to shrink back to its normal size, AND the atmosphere pushing back against the outward pressure of the gas inside the balloon.

While you're holding the balloon, you are counteracting the force of gravity pulling downward on the balloon, and when you let go (assuming you've tied the opening), the balloon, since the pressures of the gas inside the balloon, the elasticity of the balloon, and the atmosphere, have equalized, removing your "upward" force of your hand holding the balloon causes the balloon to drop, since the downward pull of gravity is now greater than any net "upward" force.

When the balloons pop the helium does not puddle on the floor of the container.

If it's in a vacuum container, yes, it does, albeit briefly. It settles slightly denser closer to the bottom of the chamber, and less dense nearer the top of the chamber, because gravity is a compressive force on fluids, and because the further an object is from a gravity well, the less influence gravity has on it, and that includes atoms and molecules.

The "air" in the tub in the following video is a gas that is HEAVIER than air, and thus sinks in normal atmosphere. Watch how the demonstrator takes a cup of the "heavy air" and pours it into the foil "boat."

The boat is floating because, despite it being literally metal, the force exerted upon it by gravity is not enough to overcome the buoyancy provided by the heavy gas in the tub. This is because there is enough surface area for the gas to apply enough pressure to to keep it afloat, in the exact same way that normal boats float on water. If you were to ball up the foil boat, and drop it into the tub of the heavy gas, it would literally drop like a stone through air. That is because the balled up foil is a higher density than the air.


Yes, the air is compressed taking away from it's buoyancy.

In a vacuum, a tank of air is heavier than a tank with nothing in it (vacuum).
 
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