The lower end of a long plastic straw is immersed below the surface of the water in a plastic cup. An average person sucking on the upper end of the straw can pull water into the straw to a vertical height of 1.1 m above the surface of the water in the cup. What is the lowest gauge pressure that the average person can achieve inside his lungs?
Fluid Pressure
The term fluid pressure is coined as, the measurement of the force per unit area of a given surface of a closed container. It is a branch of physics that helps to study the properties of fluid under various conditions of force.
Gauge Pressure
Pressure is the physical force acting per unit area on a body; the applied force is perpendicular to the surface of the object per unit area. The air around us at sea level exerts a pressure (atmospheric pressure) of about 14.7 psi but this doesn’t seem to bother anyone as the bodily fluids are constantly pushing outwards with the same force but if one swims down into the ocean a few feet below the surface one can notice the difference, there is increased pressure on the eardrum, this is due to an increase in hydrostatic pressure.
The lower end of a long plastic straw is immersed below the surface of the water in a plastic cup. An average person sucking on the upper end of the straw can pull water into the straw to a vertical height of 1.1 m above the surface of the water in the cup.
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 3 steps with 2 images