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Re:Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-wee... by nerdsniper on Saturday March 14, 2026 @01:51AM (#47373738)
I feel like people really need to learn basic physics.

The gas inside a standard party balloon is generally compressed 3% to inflate the balloon. This wipes out even the theoretical buoyancy of nitrogen. And trust me, there was never any practical buoyancy to begin with. You’d need a ridiculously large balloon in a room with impossibly still air and impossibly null thermal gradients to even measure the buoyancy of nitrogen vs air. The buoyancy of nitrogen vs air would never be perceptible to human senses in any real-world setting.

It would be the same as just filling the balloon with air.

Re:Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-wee... by joemi on Monday March 16, 2026 @09:14PM (#47407377)
> I feel like people really need to learn basic physics.

I'm 20+ years out of college and I asked a question specifically because I was unsure. Give me a break. I'm sorry if "party balloon buoyancy physics" wasn't the part of my college classes that stuck with me.