Asked by tt

As the bottle is carried from 14,000 feet to 9,000 feet to 1,000 feet, it becomes compressed. What would happen if you took a normal-shaped bottle, sealed it at 1,000 feet, and then carried it up to 14,000 feet?

The bottle would collapse as the elevation increases.

The bottle would remain unchanged.

The bottle would expand and may eventually burst.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The bottle would expand and may eventually burst.

Why: when you seal it at 1,000 ft the air inside is at the local atmospheric pressure. At 14,000 ft the outside air pressure is much lower, so the trapped air is at a higher pressure than the surroundings and pushes outward on the bottle. That outward pressure can make the bottle bulge and, if the pressure difference exceeds the strength of the bottle material, cause it to rupture.

For scale: pressure at ~1,000 ft is roughly 0.96 atm and at ~14,000 ft about 0.60 atm, so the pressure difference is on the order of 0.36 atm (~36 kPa or ~5.3 psi) — large enough to noticeably deform or fail a weak container.