existential crisis about helium balloons

[NTG]

so I got a helium balloon to celebrate my brothers birthday and now I cannot stop thinking about how helium has the magical property of floating and I'm stuck with falling. I googled it and now I'm thinking about how helium kind of has negative mass but it can't have negative mass because helium is an atom and it has a positive atomic weight. It apparently has less density than the air but I can't wrap my head around something with positive mass floating like it mass negative mass.


Or maybe I'm just bad at science.


No more helium for me

[Moe]

Think about it like this. Helium balloons float in air, for the same reason that air balloons float in water.

You can use M&M's to show density. Helium has 2 atoms, so use 2 M&Ms, Oxygen has 8, so use 8 M&Ms, notice how the 'Helium' is less than the 'oxygen'

Sense Helium is less dense, it floats.

[NTG]

I understand now, but I don't have M&M's.

very depressing story

[Clarence]

There's actually a helium shortage and prices keep getting higher and higher

All the helium keeps floating away from the earth and scientists don't know how to stop it

[NTG]

All the damn balloons keep popping and releasing the helium into the atmosphere.


Soon we'll all be breathing it!


(Sorry if I'm wrong, science is my worst subject.)

[Moe]

They could keep it in liquid form

All the damn balloons keep popping and releasing the helium into the atmosphere.


Soon we'll all be breathing it!


(Sorry if I'm wrong, science is my worst subject.)

Not really wrong. There are many ways for it to be released. What happens when it's released, is it floats up higher than the O2, where the atmosphere is thinner, but there, it's much more likely to be ripped away by the solar winds

[Wesley]

Science is my thing. I am also good at using analogies to enlighten. I know you get it already, but here is another way to think about floating: The Helium balloon is not magically rising on its own, the Nitrogen and Oxygen are shoving it up. O2 and N2 are both bigger and more dense than He, so Gravity pulls them down with more force. Well, you can't have hills and cliffs in a fluid, so the gasses are pulled as flat as they can. You introduce a hole with your balloon, so the other gasses get shoved right up tight against it and underneath it, shoving it upward.

Fun fact about Helium: The United States historically has had the largest reserves of the stuff. When a certain lighter-than-air ship was cruising all over Germany and Europe, they wanted to use Helium, but due to the war we would not let them have any. That is why they used Hydrogen in Zeppelins. The Graf Zeppelin was a beauty. The Hindenburg was even nicer! However, Hydrogen is extremely reactive, as the world soon discovered.

Another fun fact about Helium: Since it is a Noble Gas, we can't just make it with electrolysis or anything. it is created in the Nuclear reaction of fusion when two Hydrogens get together, or Fission when a Helium gets split off of something larger and more dense. Makes it seem very silly that a few years ago the United States was just dumping their Helium stockpiles.