the world's craziest idea

yup. but you have to consider the seatpost, which isn’t practical to have a vacuum in at all, so with 22" of 1" tubing (the sides on a trials frame) I would estimate the volume at 69.1150384 cubic inches, actually.
I dunno where you got 30, so double your calculations
double again for a 36er
and again for the Coker V2
nothing for the nimbus(no air)

even if the uni is lighter, it still has the same mass. it would still be just as hard to move around.

air has mass :roll_eyes:
more so then helium and umm…a very large number of times that of a vacuum.(you’ll never get a perfect vacuum, sorry.)

I gave it 40" of 1" tubing (includes the seatpost)

40*(pi*0.5^2) = 31.4 cubic inches.

sorry, I squared the diameter:o
my bad.
You’re still off though, in the same direction I was.
How do you square a half again?:stuck_out_tongue:
(ok, the seatpost COULD potentially be two feet long…but no vacuum there by any reckoning of mine)

Wow, a lot of bad physics in this thread.

How high do you think atmospheric pressure is? Barometic pressure at sea level is 15 psi. Someone can calculate the yield strength of steel or aluminum, but I assure you that it’s well above 15 psi. The strength of your frame is based on its own structural integrity, not on the air inside it holding it together. Air is highly compressible in any case.

As noted, the unicycle would have less mass, for essentially the same reason that a balloon filled with air has less mass than a balloon filled with water.

Ideal gas law: PV=NRT. Pressure in an ideal gas is a function of the number of atoms of gas, along with volume and temperature. The molecular weight of the atoms is not important; that’s why helium balloons float. (NB: The composition of the gas can make a difference, because real gases do not behave ideally, but for most purposes the ideal gas law is a good approximation.)

All that being said, it is correct that the real effect of filling any part of your unicycle with helium is far too small to be worth doing.

Don’t underestimate the power of 15 pounds added onto normal stress on a frame…but it still isn’t a major problem.

its 15lbs in every direction at all times… not just 15lbs resting on top of it.

That’s still trivial in this context. Think about the force of a 200-pound person-plus-pack landing a 2’ drop; I’m not going to bother calculating it, but it’s probably two orders of magnitude higher than 30 psi. And still our tubes don’t fail in the center; they fail at the weld, which is not where an internal vacuum would apply most of its force.

Why not fill the tire with hydrogen? It weighs half as much as helium. But still, losing even a pound or two, or wearing lighter clothing, or scraping the paint off your uni, would probably have a bigger affect.

Way to re-word the first thing I said on that so it sounds smart :roll_eyes:
15psi could push a near-bend past the limit.
This is highly unlikely(say you run over your uni with a car and the frame is laying on a rail in just the wrong spot), but as air is so light in any case, why are we still discussing this?

I just did that. It’s 10g lighter now.

Why not just tie some balloons to your helmet. You can use way more helium that way therefore having much more benefit.

wow you must have put allot of thoght into that one!

why put it in your uni, it’s like 10 times cooler to talk with it :stuck_out_tongue:

Helmet :thinking:

We kicked this idea around last year.

Why not store anti-matter inside the seatpost?

boom.

First of all, anti-matter combined with matter creates huge explosions, didn’t you read Angels and Demons?

Secondly, I love this place. When i have a bad day I just read the latest inane post and i become happy.