Huff And Puff (Funky Physics Experiments)

You will need:

1. Empty 1-litre plastic
   bottle
2. Drinking straw
3. Small objects (like a
   popcorn kernel, tiny
   crumpled paper ball,
   etc.)

Try another cool trick at your next get-together. Challenge your friends to understand this simple-looking game. No matter what this next trick, it is just impossible to accomplish.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Take an empty plastic bottle and make it lie on its side.
2. Crumple up a piece of paper so as to make a small paper ball which is smaller in size than the mouth of the bottle.
3. Place this small ball of paper at the mouth of the bottle.
4. Now take a straw and ask someone to blow the paper ball into the bottle, without touching the straw to the paper ball.
5. You can try this experiment with a small piece of popcorn, or any other small object which can be placed.

RESULT

No matter how many times they try, the piece of paper ball or any other object will fly back outside the bottle. This is a result of air pressure and movement of air. Even though the bottle is empty yet it is actually full to the brim with air. Blowing more air into the bottle, in order to blow the paper ball inside, is just impossible. But by blowing air into the bottle, the air around it is displaced, and it creates an area of low pressure, which results in the paper ball jumping back out of the bottle.