Are you an optimist or pessimist?

A cylindrical glass of radius r = 10 c m r=\sqrt{10}~cm and height h = 20 c m h=20~cm is full of water. If the bottom half of the water suddenly disappears, the glass will jump up. Find the highest height above the ground that the bottom of the glass will rise in cm .

For your amusement and some nice physics background, you can look at this cartoon about the optimist, the pessimist, and the half-empty glass. Assume in this problem however, that the glass does NOT break.

Details and assumptions

To make the numbers easy, we can assume:

  • The mass of the glass is m = 0.1 k g m=0.1~kg
  • The gravitational acceleration is 10 m / s 2 -10~m/s^2 .
  • The mass density of water is ρ = 1000 k g / m 3 \rho=1000~kg/m^3 .
  • The ambient pressure in the room is 100,000 Pa.
  • Neglect any interaction between the water and the sides of the glass.


The answer is 7.56.

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1 solution

David Mattingly Staff
May 13, 2014

The bottom half of the water suddenly disappear, and we left with vacuum in that space. So because of the atmospheric pressure, the upper half of the water will be pushed down and the glass will be pushed up with the forces of magnitude F = p o π r 2 F=p_o \pi r^2 . The acceleration of the water is a d = F ρ π r 2 h / 2 g = 2 p o ρ h g = 1010 m / s 2 a_d=-\frac{F}{\rho \pi r^2 h/2}-g=-\frac{2 p_o}{\rho h}-g=-1010~m/s^2 and the acceleration of the glass is a u = p o π r 2 m g = 3131.6 m / s 2 a_u=\frac{p_o \pi r^2}{m}-g=3131.6~m/s^2 . Since F = d p / d t F=dp/dt , the momentum of the water and the glass are the same if we neglect the gravitational force, so if we think about the effect of gravity, the momentum of the water is larger than that of the cup, when the water hits the glass, the glass will stop in the air and then it will go down. The highest height in the jumping process can be calculated as:

H = a u a u + a d h 2 = p o π r 2 m g p o π r 2 m + 2 p o ρ h h 2 = 7.56 ( c m ) H=\frac{a_u}{a_u+a_d}\frac{h}{2}=\frac{\frac{p_o \pi r^2}{m}-g}{\frac{p_o \pi r^2}{m}+\frac{2 p_o}{\rho h}}\frac{h}{2}=7.56(cm)

@Aaron Jerry Ninan , Hey are you here?

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Md Zuhair Hi!!

Aaron Jerry Ninan - 3 years, 3 months ago

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Hey, can we approach this question using work energy theorem?

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Md Zuhair How will you write ke

Aaron Jerry Ninan - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Aaron Jerry Ninan Kinetic energy?

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Md Zuhair Yes kinetic energy

Aaron Jerry Ninan - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Aaron Jerry Ninan See,

My equation was something like this, We don't need K.E as finally and initially, it will be in rest, So we can write,

P × V 2 = m g l a s s g ( x + h 2 ) + m w a t e r g x P \times \dfrac{V}{2} = m_{glass} g (x+\dfrac{h}{2}) + m_{water} g x .

Where x is the value of height attained of the glass after covering h 2 \dfrac{h}{2} .

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

@Aaron Jerry Ninan I even got x=7.56 with this equation

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Md Zuhair Check unit conversion

Aaron Jerry Ninan - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Aaron Jerry Ninan Yeah, I know. That's why I am saying, where did i went wrong, Initially, i inserted the answer and got right, but when checked its in cms, then i got confused. That's why asking u

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

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@Md Zuhair Any thoughts bro?

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

Can you just check you whatsapp? Or else i will talk to u here.

Md Zuhair - 3 years, 3 months ago

Nice solution. Things could have been much messy had the momentum of the water much less than the cup. This is the reason that made me look at the solution. Ok your calculation shows that things are simple. Where did you get this problem. It is is very strange things suddenly vanishing.

Srikanth Tupurani - 2 years, 4 months ago

I am unable to understand why does the glass is pushed up? Can you elaborate a bit more.............

raj abhinav - 1 year, 2 months ago

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