How
does it work?
The
rubber in a balloon is made up of many long molecules
that are all chemically linked together. You might
picture it as spaghetti. Like spaghetti, the links
between the molecules can stretch and move. Also
like spaghetti, if you stretch the molecular bonds
too far, they will break.
If you look at the
top of an inflated balloon you will notice it
is thicker (darker) than the sides. By putting
the needle in the top the balloons molecules were
able to stretch and accommodate the needle. However,
when you put it in the thin side, there were not enough balloon
molecules to stretch that
far -- and they broke apart from each other.
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