1. Which will have difficulty in breathing: the man at the top of a steep mountain or the man at its foot?

-the man at the top of a steep mountain because the higher the altitude the air gets thinner and thinner.

2. Why is it easier to float in the ocean than in ordinary swimming pool?

-The reason for this is that sea water is denser than fresh water. The salt combines with the water
molecules, giving sea water more matter per cubic inch than fresh water when the same volume of
water is compared. Therefore, your body will float more easily in the sea.

3. A balloon filled with nitrogen falls to the ground, but a balloon filled with helium rises. Why is this so?

-The less dense the gas inside the balloon, the more air it displaces in proportion to its own weight.
Consequently, balloons that are more dense than air will tend to sink, while balloons that are less dense
than air will tend to rise, and that’s why helium balloons fly while nitrogen-filled balloons fall.

4. Using the concept of pressure, explain the act of drinking through a straw.

-When you suck air from the straw, less air pushes on the water inside the straw than on the water
outside of it. This imbalance causes more water to be pushed into the straw. The water will rise until the
pressure created by the water column in the straw equals the air pressure difference.

5. In deep-sea diving, why is it important to have a supply of oxygen?

-All organisms require oxygen for metabolism, but the oxygen in water is unavailable to mammals.
Divers (and diving mammals such as whales and seals) are entirely dependent on the oxygen carried in
the air in their lungs or their gas supply. Divers also have a paradoxical problem with oxygen. At higher
partial pressures oxygen causes acute toxicity leading to convulsions. To understand the diver’s narrow
knife edge between fatal hypoxia and fatal hyperoxia we need to recall some of the physical properties
of gases.