How Helium Balloons Work
Floating in General Most of us feel comfortable with the idea of something floating in water. We see that happen every day. In fact, people themselves float in water, so we have a way of directly experiencing water flotation. The reason why things float in water applies to air as well, so let's start by understanding water flotation. Let's say that you take a plastic 1-liter soda bottle, empty out the soft drink it contains, put the cap back on it (so you have a sealed bottle full of air), tie a string around it like you would a balloon, and dive down to the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool with it. Since the bottle is full of air, you can imagine it will have a strong desire to rise to the surface. You can sit on the bottom of the pool with it, holding the string, and it will act just like a helium balloon does in air. If you let go of the string the bottle will quickly rise to the surface of the water. The reason that this soda bottle "balloon" wan
