Monday, May 30, 2011
Air Pressure: Plungers!
Now try to get them apart. Not an easy task!
You pushed all the air out of the middle, so there's nothing pushing them apart. Only lots of air on the outside pushing them together.
In the end, if you have a good seal, you'll need to force some air in to break the seal, but splitting the plungers apart.
On a smaller scale:
You can have your students perform this activity themselves using suction cups (the kind you sometimes use to hang things in your windows). The physics is exactly the same, just smaller!