Balloon and Pins Area Pressure Experiment

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This experiment demonstrates how pressure being shared across a larger surface area can have a very different effect on a balloon.

When pressure is applied with one pin the balloon bursts, but when pressure is applied over 15 pins it doesn’t. But why does this happen?

When the balloon is just on one pin the pin goes straight through and your balloon pops. When you drop the balloon down on more, the balloon is touching 15 pins then it’s as if each individual pin is only pushing one fifteenth as hard! That’s not enough to pierce the skin of the balloon, keeping the balloon intact.

How Can You Recreate This?

 

To try this for yourself set up two areas in order to drop the balloons onto, one with multiple drawing pins and the other with just one. Drop the balloons onto the pins.