Balloon rocket in action! How does it work??? 🚀🤔 #DrDawson #physics #shorts

Everyone loves balloons, but they are not just for parties. In this demo, we turn a balloon into a rocket and explore the physics behind its flight. After inflating the balloon and letting it go, the air rushes out one way, and the balloon zips off in the other. Why does that happen? It is all about linear momentum, which is an object's mass times its velocity. When the balloon pushes air out, the air pushes back on the balloon. That is Newton’s third law — equal and opposite forces. The system made of the balloon and the air conserves linear momentum, because the net force on the system (ignoring the effects of gravity) is zero. Both the air and balloon experience a change in momentum due to the force each exerts on the other. The momentum gained by the balloon is equal and opposite to the momentum gained by the air. While we often hear that force equals mass times acceleration, Newton’s second law is more accurately about how momentum changes over time. When the air escapes quickly, the balloon accelerates in the other direction. This demo was presented by Dr. Dawson Nodurft, professor at @tamu & @TAMUArtSci. 👍 LIKE and FOLLOW for fun science content! ➡️ Follow links at linktr.ee/tamuphysastr #tamu #science #balloon #newton #isaacnewton