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We do have the technology for this... right?
Absolutely, but the scale of the balloons is a bit off. Nobody would be walking shoulder to shoulder like this. For a normal-ish 170lb/77kg individual your personal balloon would have to be a little under 6.5 meters across assuming it were filled with helium.
Yes, I did the math.
You did the basic math, with your spherical balloon. What about giant cylinders? Then you could really pack it in.
Sure. You could do a cylinder of three quarters of a meter across which seems like a reasonable footprint for someone to stand in. That'd only have to be, uh, 325.5 meters tall to have the same volume.
You could use spherical balloons with really long, but different length, strings for each person. Of course you'd have to avoid tangling your balloons together while walking around like that and given wind can vary with elevation....
You could use hydrogen, which is less dense than helium. Then if it catches on fire like the Hindenburg you’d already be in the water.
It wouldn't help. The thing that gives you lift is the mass of displaced air. Difference from the (lack of) mass of the lifting gas is minimal.
It would, but less than the density difference, since you’ve removed weight from the balloon thus gravity has less of a pull on the balloon. My wife (a PE in thermodynamics) was the one that verified that comment before I posted it, hence why I didn’t say it would increase lift by the difference in density.
Note that you wouldn't need 77 kg worth of bouyancy from the balloon. The shoes would provide some lift, more if you made them out of some type of foam.
What if the balloon was rigid and filled with vacuum?
This I am fairly certain we do not have the technology to achieve. Anything vacuum filled that large would need to have walls so thick so as to completely negate any buoyancy effect. I don't know of any modern material that would simultaneously be rigid, strong, and light enough.
Cool sci-fi concept tho
What other sorts of random issues would be solved by this super material :opens notepad: I mean, everything, right? It would have to be so strong, so light and so economical. You could make actual BattleMechs from it that wouldn't just sink into every surface they walk on. Shit, Dyson Spheres I guess.
..so why would we use weird balloon floaties? Isn't it fun how technology answers it's own questions?
We thank you balloon master!
What if the balloons were long and vertical like the ones in Dune? That could allow them to walk closer to one another.
I addressed that in another comment here. The long and short of it (very long, as it happens) is that the volume you'd need is still the same. So your elongated balloon would have to be well beyond what most people would consider to be ridiculously tall. 325.5 meters tall, in fact, given the 0.75 meter diameter I assumed to start with. I figure most people could probably stand in a 0.75m circle provided they didn't wave their arms around a bunch.
Hope that lake doesn't have any breezes or gusts.
... Also, assuming you just did the calc for neutralizing the weight of said person...
Even if there was no wind... they could not walk.
Walking requires weight to work.
A surface you can push off of.
It seems like the picture shows one guy with walking sticks, which I guess might kinda work if the lake is less than about 2 or 3 feet, or under a meter deep... not too many lakes like that.
Maybe something like stilts... or ... huge snowshoe/flipper type things... might work?
There's an episode of Nathan For You where he uses giant balloons to help someone who weighed too much to ride a horse normally. Great show
Windsurfing? 🏄♀️