Question

You know from experience that if a car you are riding in suddenly stops. heavy objects in the rear of the car move toward the front. Why does a helium filled balloon in such a situation move, instead, toward the rear of the car?

Name: Problem 16, Chapter 13: University Physics with Modern Physics
Uploaded: 2021-05-23T06:20:26-08:00
Duration: 1 min 19 s
Channel: Ajay Singhal
Description: You know from experience that if a car you are riding in suddenly stops. heavy objects in the rear of the car move toward the front. Why does a helium filled balloon in such a situation move, instead, toward the rear of the car?

   You know from experience that if a car you are riding in suddenly stops. heavy objects in the rear of the car move toward the front. Why does a helium filled balloon in such a situation move, instead, toward the rear of the car?

University Physics with Modern Physics

Wolfgang Bauer, Gary… 2nd Edition

Chapter 13, Problem 16

Instant Answer

Solved by Expert Ajay Singhal

05/23/2021

Step 1

Inertia is the property of an object to resist any change in its motion. When the car suddenly stops, the heavy objects in the car tend to continue moving forward due to inertia. This can be represented as: \[ \text{Inertia} = \text{Mass} \times \text{Velocity} \] Show more…

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You know from experience that if a car you are riding in suddenly stops. heavy objects in the rear of the car move toward the front. Why does a helium filled balloon in such a situation move, instead, toward the rear of the car?

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Key Concepts

Inertia

Inertia is the tendency of an object to resist changes in its state of motion. In the context of a decelerating car, heavy objects move forward because they are trying to maintain their original motion due to inertia, even though the car is slowing down.

Buoyancy

Buoyancy is the upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of an immersed object. A helium-filled balloon is less dense than air, so when the car decelerates, the heavier air shifts, creating a pressure gradient that causes the balloon to move in the opposite direction to the movement of the dense air.

Pressure Gradient in Accelerated Frames

In a decelerating vehicle, the air inside the car experiences a shift due to inertia, accumulating more at the front and resulting in a higher pressure there. This pressure gradient exerts a force on lighter objects like a helium balloon, pushing it toward the lower-pressure area at the back of the car.

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