How To: Levitate a Ping Pong Ball in an Invisible Wind Tunnel

What can you do with a hair dryer besides dry your hair? Lots. You can remove stickers from clothing, clean up crayon marks, and mold your plastic eyeglasses for a better fit. But how about something a little more fun? Well, you can levitate things. Ping pong balls, to be exact.

Implementing a cheap trick that looks really sweet is always a good way to impress people. And for this levitation trick, all you'll need is a blow dryer, a ping pong ball, and a lab coat to make it look official.

The science behind the trick is based off of Bernoulli's Principle, so if you want to sound smart on top of looking awesome, then feel free to drop that name. Want to sound even smarter? Explain it to them.

The airflow from the hair dryer speeds up as it slips by the floating sphere, which creates an area of low pressure around the ball. The high pressure from the dryer surrounds the low around the ball and keeps the ball trapped in midair. It even works when you tilt the hair dryer at a 45-degree angle! Want a better explanation? Steve Spangler does a good job of telling how it works.

To make it even cooler, try using and empty toilet roll and place it over the floating ping pong ball—minds will be blown.