karthik · updated · flag · 8

The longest vertical straw you can drink from is 10.3 metres. Even if you use a vacuum pump it won’t suck the liquid higher than that! Here is why!

Contrary to your intuition, when you drink from a straw you are not actually sucking up the fluid here. Just the air. So, when you do that, inside the straw, the pressure drops lower than that of the atmospheric pressure (101 kPa) outside. So, it’s the outside air pressure that pushes the water into the straw.

As the liquid moves up the straw, it is fighting against the gravity that is pulling it downwards. But it still keeps rising as long as the atmospheric pressure is greater than the pressure inside the straw due to gravity (weight of the liquid column).

The more liquid enters the column, the more it weighs. And at a certain height, there’d be enough water in the straw that’d exert the same pressure as that of the atmospheric pressure. That height, at sea level on earth, for water is 10.3 m.

$$p_{atm}= 101\;kPa$$

$$p_{straw}= \dfrac{F}{A} \Rightarrow \rho g h$$

$$\rho g h = 101 \times 10^3\;N/m^2$$

$$h = \dfrac{101 \times 10^3\;N/m^2}{10^3\;kg/m^3 \times 9.81\;m/s^2}$$

$$h = 10.3\; m$$

## Comments

ragu · · edited

This will be my all time favorite spark. You have just explained the principle of barometers. You have elegantly put it in simple words. Please write more sparks like this. I love it!