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How many helium balloons does it take to lift an electric guitar?

About 360 balloonsAn electric guitar weighs 3.63 kg, and each balloon lifts about 10 g.

It takes about 360 balloons.

How we worked it out

An electric guitar weighs 3.63 kg, and each balloon lifts about 10 g. Standard 11-inch party balloons at sea level, about 10 g of lift each. Real life adds a little friction and waste, so treat the number as a solid ballpark rather than a lab result. The constants behind every experiment are on the science page.

Watch it happen

This was one of the five experiments in It Took #6. In the game you guess first, then the experiment plays out with your number: too few and it fails, too many and it overshoots.

Play It Took #6Play today’s experiments

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