On Chemistry

Twelve months ago, I was a high school Junior, and I thought I had a brilliant idea that would revolutionize the electronics industry.

This brilliant idea hatched as I contemplated how heavy my laptop was. Surely there was some way of making it lighter…

Inspiration hit me without warning: Helium balloons rise. Thus, helium has a certain “negative” weight: let’s say -x pounds per liter. What if we put a torpedo shaped titanium container inside a laptop, and pumped in 100 liters of helium? Gas is compressible, so after sealing the container inside the laptop, our laptop would now weigh 100*x pounds less!

U.S. patent office certificates flashed before my eyes, as did visions of my face on the next issue of ComputerWorld.  But only for a second. I shelved my brainstorm, not out of unfeasibility (or so I thought), but out of laziness.

For the next twelve months I harbored my misguided idea and carried around my five-pound laptop. Well, today (while studying for a chem test) I’ve finally realized the latter isn’t going to become appreciably lighter anytime soon: My computer-moonbelt idea is pure lunacy. Helium doesn’t have negative mass. A balloon rises because helium weighs less than the same amount of air relative to the size of an inflated balloon.

I should probably be more than a little worried for my chemistry gas laws test tomorrow.