| A few of my science colleagues were discussing some
| physics/chemistry concepts.
|
| 1. Does anyone know how a Mexican jumping bean works? I
| believe there is an insect larva inside that can jump. How,
| then, does the bean rise upward since the forces are internal
| (and thus momentum is conserved)?
|
The forces are not completely internal, the bean is sitting on
something.
Or to put it another way, the momentum upward for the bean and internal
organism is balanced by the earth's momentum the other way.
| 2) Water is a polar molecule, and a charged balloon will
| easily bend a stream of water. Hexane is not a polar
| molecule, and chemistry demo books say the stream should NOT
| bend. But if you put hexane in a buret, a charged balloon
| DOES bend the stream. A charged balloon should attract any
| neutral object, right? Something seems wrong here...
|
Almost everything is polarized to some degree by an external electric
field.