First, blow up your balloon and tie it off. Then position the hair dryer or fan so that it is pointing straight up. Turn it on and place the balloon above it and watch what happens. Don’t worry about adjusting the hair dryer or fan, in fact keep it as still as possible.

Now that the balloon is floating in mid air try tilting the hair dryer or fan very slowly and see if you can keep the balloon suspended in the air at an angle.

How can the balloon stay suspended? Well according to Bernoulli, the pressure of a moving gas decreases as its speed increases (Translation: Moving air sucks!). The hair dryer/fan will push the balloon up but normally it would push the balloon up and over to a side and the balloon would then fall to the ground (assuming you did not move the hair dryer/fan). However, since moving air sucks, when the balloon is pushed off track it gets sucked back on track by the moving air.

Try this at home and see how different speeds alter how the balloon or ping pong ball acts. Also check out these other ideas to discover how Bernoulli can work from Electric Erin

Disclaimer: Technically the moving air is not sucking, it is being pushed by all of the air around it. When air moves, it moves from one spot to another, but something has to take its place when it moves. The air around the moving air moves to where the original air was and takes its place.

Confused yet? It is weird I know but I just felt I had to be “scientifically” correct at some point. Try this experiment at home and let us know how it works!