Science! Part 1

I was sitting a couple of weeks ago in the flat. Bored. On t'internet, as you do. And I said to my flatmate "Did you ever hear of the guy who strapped helium ballons to a chair and floated up through the sky?" Obviously he didn't believe me, so I had to use the power of computers to prove to him it happened.

The Snopes page is here, and it's quite cool, when you actually read what the guy done.

But that got me thinking, thinking about whether or not I could attempt something like that myself. I decided it was far too dangerous, and would probably be really expensive. Then my flatmate's wee dog scampered in, jumped up on the couch, and grinned at me like a spaz.

She's a little daschund, very much like this...



...though without that fetching coat. Now, I thought, how cool would it be to take her out a walk, with her floating at the end of her leash, five feet in the air, suspended by helium balloons?

Very, was the answer. All I had to do was work out how much it was going to cost.

Now, she probably weighs between 5 and 7 kilograms, depending on how much she's eaten recently, so I had to figure out how many helium balloons it would take to get her off the ground.

I found out your standard one foot diameter balloon, when filled with helium, can exert an upwards force capable of lifting about 14 grams.

OK, taking the weight of the dog, for simplicity's sake, to be 6 kilograms we get:

1 balloon = 14 grams
1 dog = 6000grams

6000/14 = 428.6 (rounded up) balloons.

Obviously we have to round that up again, to get one full balloon, so call it 429 balloons, to equalise the upward force exerted by the balloons and the downward force of the dog. She would probably rise quite slowly, so she'd be easy to keep on the end of the leash.

"But how much would that cost?" I hear you ask. Well, Balloons.co.uk price the hire of their HG331 N2O Canister at £135.71 (click that link and scroll down). Problem is, it will on inflate 330 12" balloons and we need 429. So, we'll have to hire an HG330 N2O Canister (which can inflate 165 12" balloons) too. That'll set us back another £95.76.

Total price so far - £231.47. They do deliver though, so that's quite nice.

With those 2 canisters we can inflate 495 balloons, which from Balloons.co.uk will set us back 8p each. Let's call it an even 500:

500 balloons x £0.08 = £40. Nice. I reckon they'd deliver them when they bring the helium, too.

Grand Total, then - £271.47, and for that we get 500 helium balloons, with a flight time of between 8 and 10 hours. Plenty of time to wander about London getting odd looks.

If anyone has a spare £280, I'm totally up for this. The logistics of actually inflating and attaching almost 430 balloons to a dog not much longer than a foot will have to wait until all the equipment is right there in front of me. I'm sure it won't take long.

(Christ, imagine if I accidentally let go of the leash. My flatmates would kill me and burn me in the bath)