Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashDrive
Good point ...I noticed that also ...but refrained from starting a ' tit for tat ' ....but seeing it has been bought up ....would Clive like to step forward and show us how ' knowledgeable ' he is and how he came to his conclusion.
Thanks OICURMT ....at least there are people like yourself here who do read the article PROPERLY ...and don't post ' unsubstantiated rants ' in the quest of showing their ignorance.
Flash ...!!
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I thought it would have been obvious.... but here it is;
A 4' sphere has a volume of slightly less than 1 cubic metre, but let's just call it 1m3 for the sake of argument. The density of air is 1.2kg/m3 (at 20C) Helium has approximately 1/7th the density of air, therefore 45 balloons of 1m3 capacity filled with helium will have a lifting capacity of around 40kg... give or take.
Whilst the following pertains to the second guy, it is instructive with respective to the accuracy of the information conveyed in the snopes page. The ascent rate quoted is 1000' in 12 seconds, this is 90km/h. For a thought experiment imagine you have a balloon 4' in diameter tied to some string. Could you imagine driving down the freeway at this speed with this critter trailing behind you. Do you imagine the drag of the balloon would exert as little as 1kg of tension on your piece of string? Nope... not going to happen.
There is no doubt some element of truth to the story, but the articles that have described it simply cannot be accurate, it's physically impossible.