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Will the color of a balloon effect how quickly it will pop?

css123

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Hi guys,
I have to do a science fair for my school and an idea I had was would a different color balloon pop quicker/slower than another color balloons?. Ex: will a blue balloon pop quicker than a red balloon? Will the color make a difference? would it be better to test this using colored paper than balloons? also, all this will be done with a 150Mw Green laser pointer. Thanks!
 





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black will pop the quickest as it absorbs the most light, the darker the color the faster it will pop effectively.

sorry i cant be more descriptive than that - but i can also tell you that a transparent or same color balloon as the laser (in your case green) wont pop.
 

Rafa

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Frist things first: Don't bring a 150mW green laser to your school.

Anyway you're going to do it so I'll answer to your question. For this thing you better get
a lower powered laser. Imagine that you have a 660nm Red laser. For example, this will pop
faster a blue balloon. If you have a 405nm laser, or 445nm laser, you will pop faster the red balloon.

So, the opposite colour of you laser is the easiest to pop.
 

css123

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O i wasnt going to bring my laser to school. im doing this at home. but thanks for the info I'll definately use that in my background info. Thanks!
 

css123

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So would this not be a good idea to do? If anybody has anyother ideas for a laser science fair project (must be a testible question) I'dd be happy to know. Just post it here. :thanks:
 

Rafa

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Do it, but not with 150mW of GREEN!

The problem is the colour. I have a 50mW greenie and it's really painful to look at its dot.
So the rest of your class may get some eye damage of only looking at the spot, etc etc.
What I suggest you to do is to get a 200mW red and a 100mW blu-ray and do the
experiment with those too and wit A LOT of caution. If you fuck up someones eyes the
problem heads DIRECTLY to you and your professor, and we, you, don't want this to
happen.
 

css123

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Im not bringing the laser to school though so only I will be looking at the dot and I also have saftey glasses. but will a 150Mw green work for this project? I see what you mean though b/c violet and red won't look as bright b/c of the sensitivity to the eye. Thanks!
 

Rafa

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A green laser will(should) work with a red and green balloons. Maybe 150mW is too much to notice but anyway...
 

DrSid

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You can always use black marker and make black spot on the balloon. Like this you can pop even white balloons.
 
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A laser works on a certain ("fixed") wavelength. Colour that is perceived by the human eye is actually the reflection of a wavelength off the material. For example, a green object reflects only green light and absorbs all other wavelengths (also absorption of other wavelengths is dependent on the material). Black and white is not actually a colour, they are shades. Black is the abortion off all light, while white is the reflection of all light.

So with that knowledge it is easy to see a green balloon is harder to pop with a green laser, because the light will be reflected instead of absorbed. Also popping a white balloon is almost equally as difficult with any laser colour, because of its wide spectrum reflection. So we can see that black balloons have the best chance of being popped, because it has the highest absorption of wavelengths of all the colours and thus any coloured laser will be able to pop it.

This is the information that your assignment will be centered on. You will also have to branch out and find out why it is absorbed/reflected, how does the absorption of light pop a balloon and then preform an experiment to support your claims.

Hope that helped.
-Adrian
 
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