Imagine a balloon sitting on a tabletop. The balloon is free to move. You take one uncooked spaghetti noodle. Can you pop the balloon with this spaghetti? If you try, you will quickly see that you cannot [Fig. 1(a)]. You might think that the reason for the failure is the movement of the balloon. As it is not supported by anything, it moves away the moment you touch it with the spaghetti. But you also observe that the noodle breaks. Are these the explanations of your lack of success? To test both explanations of the balloon popping failure, the movement of the balloon (E1) and breaking of the spaghetti noodle (E2), we will perform testing experiments.
References
1.
Sound is not included in the figure.
2.
Use a straw of at least 0.5 m long; alternatively, you can use a plastic or metallic tube with a similar diameter.
© 2015 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2015
American Association of Physics Teachers
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