The Imitation Game

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Alan Turing: Uh, that's my sandwich.

Hugh Alexander: You don't like sandwiches.

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Sadly, this post is not about the 2014 movie, Alan Turing or sandwiches. Apologies for getting your hopes up and maybe making you a bit hungry. A few weeks ago, our group was brainstorming different visual experiments we can do to educate the public. One of them, which Mohammed found, was the volume vs density balloon experiment.

Essentially, the experiment ‘imitates’ the collapse of a star to indicate the importance of density in black holes. During a star’s normal life, the fusion energy created at the core of the star balances the force of gravity acting on the star. At the end of a star’s life, the fuel for the fusion energy runs out. Thus, the balance is broken and the gravity can pull all the mass of the star in on itself. In the experiment, the hands squeezing the popped balloon simulates the force of gravity at the end of a star’s life. It is interesting to note that this experiment is an excellent visual of Mr. Hill’s black hole note for the grade 12 curriculum. A black hole is a massive object that is infinitely small, infinitely dense and has a gravitational field that is so strong, that even light cannot escape its surface (the event horizon aka the point of no return). This is a simple experiment anyone can do at home or at school with accessible materials and a quick procedure.

Today we decided to actually do a live demo and filming of the experiment. While doing the experiment, we encountered several difficulties. It was not as simple as we thought it would be. Finding the right sharp implement to pop the balloon proved to be crucial to the success of the experiment. We needed a hole big enough for us to be able to shrink the balloon by our hands but not too big or else the process would not be as gradual. Using too many sheets of aluminum foil also limited our ability to squeeze the balloon to a smaller size. It did not visually become as small as we would like it to be in order to represent a black hole. Of course, the experiment is still quite different from how a black hole actually forms – do not worry, we are not teaching the public how to make their own black holes from a balloon and aluminum foil.

#Catherine