An Extension of the Imploding Can Demonstration

In this paper we address some fascinating aspects of the well-known, simple demonstration of a collapsing can. An Internet search on “collapsing can” or “imploding can” gives more than 700 hits.1 Because physics and physics teaching journals have not given a corresponding amount of attention to this experiment,2 we decided to make our own contribution to the literature. We show that a careful study of the crushing can experiment introduces a very wide range of conceptual and practical topics in classical thermodynamics. We especially suggest a simple experimental extension that allows much more information on the physical behavior of the imploding can to be easily obtained.