"I was hiding under your porch b/c I love you"

Everyone remembers when the charming childhood film "Up" came out. Parents cried; kids sobbed; babies teared up. It was great. Very...UP-lifting...

Anyways, let us delve into the wonderful world of plausibility. Could Mr. Frederickson's house ACTUALLY fly? If so...how many balloon's would it truly take?

Let me draw you a mental diagram: so we have the house, attached to a series of balloons. The focre upward is the buoyant force, also known as air density, by the downward acceleration of gravity, by the volume of the balloon. The downward force is that of mass times downward acceleration. For the house to even begin to lift, the buoyant force must equal 'mg.' To fly, it must be greater than 'mg.'

Let's throw some values in there.

Avg. Air Density: 1.225 kg/m^3

Gravitational Acceleration: 10 m/s^2

Volume of a balloon: (4/3) (pi) (r^3)

= (1.333) (3.142) (0.5) ft.^3

= (1.333) (3.142) (0.125)ft.^3

= 0.524 ft.^3

Avg. Mass of a House: 54431.1 kg

Let's say we need 'x' balloons.

(x) (p) (g) (V) = (m) (g)

(x) (p) (V) = (m)

(x) (1.225 kg/m^3) (0.524 ft.^3) = (54431.1 kg)

x = 84,797

That's quite a lot of balloons. Like...that's almost 85,000 balloons just to TAKE OFF let alone fly to Paradise Falls! Plausibility? Slim to none. Luckily, this is a Pixar movie and it doesn't quite matter if it's realistic or not. Interesting though...to me at least.

I guess to sum it all up, Russell once said:

"That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most."