Instructions for:
Bernoulli Blower
An air jet from a hair dryer will suspend a pingpong ball in midair. This isn't a delicate balance: the ball wobbles around, and you can even poke at it gently and it stays in place. This is an illustration of the Bernoulli effect: the air pressure is lower inside an air jet. An airplane wing holds up an airplane this way, and it allows a sailboat to sail upwind (not straight upwind, but making progress against the wind nonetheless).
Problems with this activity:
- It requires electrical power.
- It involves kids and electrical power.
- Hair dryers are noisy.
- Hair dryers heat as well as making an air jet. If you have the kind of vacuum sweeper that will blow as well as suck, it will get rid of this problem, and hold up a much larger ball.
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Copyright 2014 Joseph Straley - The University of Kentucky Physics Petting Zoo