• Question: How much pressure is needed to make a small water balloon explode?

    Asked by anon-267549 on 12 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 12 Nov 2020:

      Apparently a regular party balloon can get up to 10% more pressure than the atmosphere around us before exploding, although this depends a lot on the conditions – if you change the temperature and the pressure of the air around you (by going up a mountain) you can explode a balloon at a much lower pressure.

      You can of course also burst a balloon by pricking it with a pin. This can do some cool things depending on the pressure of the balloon: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-behind-a-bursting-balloon

    • Photo: Iain Tullis

      Iain Tullis answered on 12 Nov 2020:

      I think that when a water balloon bursts it “unzips” from some small defect – I’m sure if you look on youtube you’ll find loads of slow motion video of bursting water balloons.

Comments