I watched a random science video on the great internet where they discussed facts about different gasses, and it got me thinking if the air around us weighs something. Does it? How much?
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I watched a random science video on the great internet where they discussed facts about different gasses, and it got me thinking if the air around us weighs something. Does it? How much?
This article describes a very interesting experiment regarding this. It says to hang an empty balloon, and an inflated balloon on both ends of a level dowel, and the side with the inflated balloon hangs lower – proving that air has weight – and that’s why we can feel the wind. But how much does it weigh? This other article says that “air weighs 14.7 psi or pounds per square inch at sea level – meaning about 15 pounds are pressing down on every square inch of you.” They also said that “that’s about the weight of car pressing down on you all the time!” – pretty interesting stuff.
They detailed the calculation of the this in the article and concluded that we don’t get crushed by all this weight because that weight is distributed evenly over Earth’s and our bodies’ surfaces and that the amount of pressure exerted inward (like from above and beside) is balanced by the pressure exerted outward because we breathe in the atmosphere as well.
Learned a lot by answering this great question – kudos!