Name: History of a Barometer
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 4 min 12 s
Description: A barometer is a scientific instrument measuring air pressure in a certain environment. Do you want to know how it came into the picture? Watch this video.

Question

Demonstrate an activity which shows pressure exerted by water at the bottom of the container depends on the height of its column of water.

Accepted Answer

Take a transparent plastic pipe. Also, take a thin sheet of rubber. Stretch the thin rubber sheet and tie it tightly over one end of the plastic pipe. The plastic pipe is a container that has a stretchable bottom made of a thin rubber sheet. Keeping the pipe vertical, let us pour some water into the pipe from the top. We will find that on pouring water in the pipe, the rubber sheets tied to its bottom stretches and bulges out. The bulging out of the rubber sheet demonstrates that the water poured in the pipe exerts pressure on the bottom of its container.

This is because the bottom of the container is made of a flexible, thin rubber sheet which can get stretched by the pressure exerted by water to form a bulge. Now pour some water into the plastic pipe so that the height of the water column in the pipe increases. The weight of the liquid causes pressure in the container. As the height of the water column increased the bulge in the rubber sheet also increased showing that the pressure of water on the bottom of its container has increased. The greater the height of the water column in the pipe greater will be the bulge in its rubber sheet bottom.
We conclude that:

A liquid exerts pressure on the bottom of its container.

The pressure exerted by a liquid depends on the height of the liquid column.

Demonstrate an activity which shows pressure exerted by water at the bottom of the container depends on the height of its column of water.

Important Questions on Force and Pressure

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