In 2009 Pixar Animation studios released the movie “Up”. On it we see a house floating in the air, pulled up by many helium balloons. What volume of helium is needed to to make a house airborne?
To answer this question, you need to
- Estimate a range for the weight of the house.
- Calculate the weight of a ballon full of air and another full of Helium. You can assume that the balloon has a volume of one cubic meter (\(1m^3\)). This will give you how much weight can be lifted by such balloon.
You can assume that air and helium are ideal gases. The ideal gas law says that \(PV=nRT\) where
- \(P\) is the absolute pressure of the gas,
- \(V\) is the volume of the gas,
- \(n\) is the amount of substance of gas (number of moles),
- \(R\) is the gas constant, equal to \[8.31446261815324 \frac{m^3⋅Pa}{K⋅ mol}\]