My Coworker Is An Airhead
FURNITURE STORE | WORKING | MAY 22, 2013
(My coworker is filling balloons with helium to decorate our furniture store.)
Coworker
#1 : “Did you know that if you fill one of those balloons with twice as much helium, it’ll be twice as weightless?”
Coworker
#2 : “Really?”
Coworker
#1 : “Yep!”
Me: “Um, you know that helium isn’t truly weightless, don’t you? It may become more buoyant, but it isn’t ever weightless.”
Coworker
#1 : “That’s not true. Helium is weightless. How else would it make the balloon float? So it stands to reason that twice as much would be twice as weightless!”
Me: “No, weightless means zero weight. By your logic, twice zero is zero, but helium isn’t weightless. It’s simply that helium is lighter than the gases comprising air. Take the example of a bubble rising to the surface of water because the water is heavier than air.”
Coworker
#1 : “But air doesn’t have weight either! Can you feel it?” ”
(To demonstrates his point, he fans the air in front of himself.)
Coworker
#1 : *triumphantly* “NO!”
Me: *facepalm*