A gas balloon is any balloon that stays aloft due to being filled with a gas less dense than air or lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). A gas balloon may also be called a Charlière for its inventor, the Frenchman Jacques Charles. Today, familiar gas balloons include large blimps and small rubber party balloons. Blimps have displaced zeppelins (which are not balloons) as the dominant form of airship.
Read more about Gas Balloon: History, Records, On Other Planets
Famous quotes containing the words gas and/or balloon:
“Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“When I am on a stage, I am the focus of thousands of eyes and it gives me strength. I feel that something, some energy, is flowing from the audience into me. I actually feel stronger because of these waves. Now when the play’s done, the eyes taken away, I feel just as if a circuit’s been broken. The power is switched off. I feel all gone and empty inside of me—like a balloon that’s been pricked and the air’s let out.”
—Lynn Fontanne (1887–1983)