why a balloon does not pop when pressed to multiple nails but pop when pressed into 1 nail?
In: Physics
I won’t be the best answer but take all of those points and combine them into a single surface area. It would be like trying to pop a balloon with your finger as long as all points and surfaces of the balloon are mostly equivalent. It’s just weight and force distribution. If the balloon falls on a single sharp single point it will most likely pop but it takes a lot more force to pop a balloon with your finger.
Let’s say you push on the balloon with 10 pounds of force. Idk what the actual number is but that’s nice and convenient. If you have one nail, that nail will have 10 pounds of force applied at its point to balance your downward force, and it will break the balloon. Let’s say instead you’re pushing down on 10 nails. Now each nail only has 1 pound of force, for a total of 10 pounds, which balances out
Distribution of force.
With multiple nails, the force of you pressing it against the nails is distributed among all the nails, which is not enough to pierce the balloon.
With a single nail, all that force is going to be concentrated on the the head of that one nail, which can easily pierce the balloon.
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