One of our most-used appliances is our FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing System. We store food in the bags that it sucks the air out of then seals. Most things keep longer when they don't have air around them. The FoodSaver came with some canisters that you use when the food shouldn't be crushed (salad, for instance).
For entertainment, you can put marshmallows in a canister and suck the air out. The marshmallows are full of air that expands when the air around them goes away. The marshmallows grow quite a bit. If you leave the marshmallows in the vacuum they eventually lose much of the air to that made them grow and they shrink back to their original size. Then when you let the air back into the canister, the air pressure smooshes the marshmallows into tiny lumps.
I recently was pointed to Peep Research from an old article in the New York Times. In addition to studying such things as the effects of smoking and alcohol on Peeps and their solubility (well, lack of) in sulfuric acid, they studied Peeps in low-pressure environments.
With my FoodSaver I have the ability to subject Peeps to a low-pressure environment. So I did. Here's a short film of Peeps in Space!
Happy Easter.
A little update: I have Google send me alerts when news articles or blog posts appear that contain interesting keywords (for example, my last name). Apparently some people are notified of blog posts that contain the word "peeps." I got a nice note asking me to link to Marshmallow Peeps on the Internet - A Study. If you're interested in Peeps, this looks like a valuable resource.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
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7 comments:
An exceptional film! You're alreaxdy an internationally acclaimed filmmaker and this one should certainly further your renown!
I don't understand the physics of this procedure even though you explained it. I would think, since they are composed mostly of air, that sucking the air out of the container would also suck the air out of the Peeps instead of making them bigger.
The air eventually does get sucked out of the Peeps. Marshmallows are a foam made up of a zillion tiny bubbles. Before the air is sucked out of the canister, the air pressure in the canister and in the Peeps' foam is the same. When the air is sucked out, the pressure in the Peeps is higher than in the canister so the air in the bubbles push out and the Peeps expand.
The same thing happens in your ears when you go up a mountain (where there is less air pressure). If your Eustachian tubes are plugged up, the air inside your ears expands but has nowhere to go. So it puffs up your ears and makes you miserable.
Poor little peeps. It is an interesting experiment. Did you bite their heads off?
Beautiful Peeps footage! Thanks!
So I did a Google search for "peeps in space" and the first result is a movie of a Peep being taken to the edge of space, nearly 97,000 feet, by a balloon. It illustrates the puffing up of the Peep as the atmospheric pressure goes down as the Peep's altitude goes up.
Isn't science wonderful?
There are other YouTube videos of people putting Peeps into vacuum chambers.
Cool!
(Word verification: werfed, which may be a good word for what you did to those peeps!)
Thanks for clearing up my confusion!
I didn't wade through all the information in your follow-up. My mind was boggled just learning that so much research is being done on those cute little confections.
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