A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"

mongobonix wrote:

A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"



No. As pressure approaches vacuum, pumps start pumping
less and less molecules per second. It takes a very
long time to pump a good vacuum, as people doing
high vacuum experiments will testify. At zero pressure,
a vacuum cleaner will just be a rotating disk that does
no pumping.


Gerard

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:08:21 +0000, mongobonix wrote:

A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in. So does anyone
know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"

No. A vacuum cleaner works by sucking in air. It is the air that drags
dirt particles with it. In vacuum, no air is present, hence this principle
cannot work.

Igor

Fair question.

It does not. If you were on the back end of a fan in space you would
not get pulled towards just as you would not get a breeze if you were
in front of it.

"mongobonix" wrote in message om...
A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"


No, it needs air to work.

Martin Hogbin

mongobonix wrote:
A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"


Only inside a dirty vacuum!

That is, only when there is a little gas floating around to move the
dirt with. It's the pressure of this gas that makes the vacuum cleaner
work, not the "creation of a vacuum."

Doug

mongobonix wrote:
A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"

(What's a vacuum cleaner? Does a diffusion pump qualify?) I can blow a
balloon away very easily with a puff of air from several feet. I can't
suck a balloon towards me - unless it's close to my mouth. What changes
to make this possible at close range? Boundary conditions?

"mongobonix" wrote in message om...
A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"

If the vacuum is sufficiently dirty, the cleaner will work just fine.

Dirk Vdm

mongobonix wrote in om:

A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"


See if you can answer a related question:
What is the sound of a fan operating in a vacuum?

mongobonix wrote:

A colleague asked me this and now it's doing my head in.
So does anyone know...
"Does a Vacuum Cleaner work inside a Vacuum?"

No. What would create the mass flow that entraps particulates? It's
not much of a problem, though, for people don't live in local vacua
unless they are encapsulated. The problem then is not harvesting
pariculates, it is changing diapers.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf