Vacuums impel

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P-prim example: Vacuums Impel...or, Sucking

A common-sense naive way of explaining the functioning of a soda straw is the p-prim of sucking—a vulgar and inaccurate word. Why is nature afraid of a vacuum? Since a vacuum is, by defintion, nothing (quantum vacuum energy fluctuations aside), there should be no structures, hooks, vortices, etc., that can exert a force through the straw on the Classic Coke in your glass.

Evangelista Torricelli’s made the perceptive (and given his times, courageous) observation that there was a vacuum above his column of mercury—but he did not make the mistake of ascribing causal powers to his pet vacuum. Even when this concept was in its infancy, he understood that it was not the vacuum that supported the column of mercury 30 inches high, but differential air pressure that produced the force which supported this column, and which today pushes, not “s***s” the soft drink up your straw.

(Mark Pichaj)