If you hold a flame to a balloon, can you prevent it from exploding?
What you need:
- balloon
- water
- matches
What to do:
- Pour some water into an uninflated balloon until it is almost full.
- Blow up the balloon, but keep it fairly small.
- Tie the balloon at the end.
- Hold the balloon up so that the tie is at the top.
- Light a match and hold it up to bottom of the balloon. Does it pop?
What happens:
If you did this trick without any water, the balloon would definitely pop. But when there’s water in there, the water absorbs the heat instead of the rubber of the balloon. If you held the match there long enough, the water would all heat up and then the balloon would too and it would pop. It is also best to hold the flame up to the bottom of the balloon, because there isn’t as much tension there, so the balloon is less likely to pop.
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