have scientists ever tried to create such an experiment to see what the effects would be?
Yes. And you can preform just such an experiment at home (or, for the advanced reader, in your head) showing you the same thing.
The Thing:
A one inch square column of water sitting on the ground weighs about one metric ton per mile (with apologies to the purist who flinched at my mixing systems). Most plants and animals are not equipped to deal with multiple Mg/in
2 pressures. For very short periods of time a person can withstand about a third of a tonne/in
2, while other animals find foraging a more interesting pursuit and have yet to venture into competition deep diving.
However, is it possible that our column of water could be held in suspension in the atmosphere as a gas and not exert the same pressure on surface of the Earth?
The Experiment:
It is well known by any child playing in a pool that it is possible to lift a much greater weigh while it is below the surface than when it is above the surface with a transition that seem nearly magical. Most children are disillusioned in the seventh grade when they are told about buoyancy in an Earth Sciences class. When a toaster is immersed in a bathtub full of water, if one is not occupied by certain other effects, two things will be evident: the afore mentioned weight reduction and the rise in the level of the water. This rise in the water level is important. The amount of rise times the integral surface area through the rise interval equals the volume of the toaster. Eureka, if we weight that volume of water it will be gleaned that that volume of water weights exactly that of the loss measured in the toaster. We have located the repository of the missing weight of the toaster in the rise in the water.
I hope it is easily understood that the weight of the bathtub plus the weight of the toaster is equal to the weight of the bathtub and toaster. Similarly, the weight of our x miles high, inch square, column of air plus the weight of our y miles high, inch square, column of water equals the weight of our the weight of our combined x+18ky miles high, inch square, column of air and water vapor.
If this is not clear to you, Peg, I suggest you take a toaster with you next time you take a bath and see it for yourself. I'm sure you'll find the experiment enlightening.
AbE: Sorry folks. In my head my statement read "pre mile" and even after reading it a few times I still read it saying just that. I thought the ever-so-popular, super-adorable, mega-spootie, awesome NosyNed was referring to my not mentioning the total hight of the water of the flood. It has since been corrected. (And thanks for "buoyancy" too. I must have missed the "y" and my spell checker replaced it with bouncy. I too rarely question my SC's suggestions.)
This also removes the problem as pointed out by petrophysics1's post, but proof reading rather then dimensional analysis was the cause of the error; nevertheless, I did screw-up.
To one and all: I welcome any and all corrections/suggestions to/for my posts. Though most of my errors are due to impatience, I remain without a mentor and am attempting to guide my own education through these matters. It is a trail fraught with dead ends.
Edited by Admin, : Fix spelling, "bouncy" => "buoyancy"
Edited by lyx2no, : Per mile.
Edited by lyx2no, : Point out the point more clearly.
Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.
™ Version 4.2
