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To: d[-_-]b who wrote (70214)	12/24/1998 2:54:00 PM
From: Scumbria	Respond to of 186894

Eric, try smoking a cigarette and blow the balloon up with smoke - then puncture the beast and report back what you've learned. I learned that smoking makes me sick ;^) Scumbria

To: d[-_-]b who wrote (70214)	12/24/1998 2:58:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

re: balloon physics There is a difference between puncturing and bursting a balloon. Puncturing one -- one hole -- leads to those fun macro-brownian cavortings around the room. "Burst" means -- wrt balloons and artillery projectiles -- flying into pieces. Each of these pieces is made of material that has been stressed, and it contracts (unless it has been stressed beyond its elastic limit. If a balloon bursts or explodes -- the contents (air or cigarette smoke) must be under pressure -- the compressive force of the elastic body of the balloon. The flaccid balloon can hardly burst because its body is not under stress, and doesn't even need to have its neck tied -- like a hot air balloon. A burst of a pressurized balloon will lead to uniform expansion (with some local imperfections owing to imperfect bursting). This expansion will be accompanied by cooling sufficient to restore equilibrium -- and there will be a slightly larger area occupied by the contents than before the burst. The amount of the incremental average radius of the gas (ignoring the slight convective displacements within or without the sphere) will depend on the tensile strength of the balloon material. Rubber will s-t-r-e-t-c-h easily under pressure, tending to equalize internal and external pressure and producing only a small post-burst expansion. Steel balloons have much greater tensile strength to offset larger pressure differences, and make a much bigger bang. A fractured diving tank with several hundred atmospheres can raise bloody hell with a warehouse, and even set off a chain reaction. In the limiting case with flimsy balloon material (to which I was implicitly referring -- since internuts are very weak) the interior gas expands so slightly after bursting that it is completely offset by the intrinsic expansion of space itself. In the internut case, a bursting of the balloon is likely to lead to a contraction of the contents -- if any -- and there should be no shards flying through the market to injure anyone. Obviously, from this exposition, internet market physics has a long way to go -- if not in the theory (in which I pride myself to have solved the basic problems) -- then in experimentation. I think we should blow up a few internuts under controlled conditions and with protected observation stations to see whether the outcome is as predicted. If they are actually done with smoke and mirrors, we should see a blob of smoke, rapidly dissipating, and some silvery fragments of glass settling rapidly. If they have secret value -- it should be readily observed sparkling in the ruins. I think there is an infinitely elastic supply of these things available. Every ISP will give you a page, and all undergraduates around here can write html in their sleep. I am thinking of establishing a new game of internut trap and skeet, in which one makes points for all of the pages one bursts. Happy Kwanzaa to you.