This is the title of our series of videos about important events for ballooning that have happened here in Central Germany.

No, he did not invent it.

But he did discover the theoretical basis for it.

His contribution was the idea that the principle of static lift must also work in the air.

But how do you prove lift in the air?

Today, the proof is visible in the form of balloons in the sky in many places.

However, the balloon was not invented until 1783, 97 years after Otto von Guericke's death, by the Montgolfier brothers.

Otto von Guericke made use of the different buoyancy experienced by bodies of different sizes.

And that buoyancy is ZERO in a vacuum.

To prove this, he constructed the dasymeter, also known as an air balance.

To prove this, he hung two weights of different weights and sizes on a beam balance.

As long as the weights are surrounded by air, they are in equilibrium, because the larger, heavier weight experiences exactly the amount of more buoyancy needed to keep it in equilibrium with the lighter weight.

If the density of the surrounding air is reduced by pumping out the pressure, the balance drops further and further towards the side with the heavier weight.

Although the buoyancy of both weights is reduced, the loss of buoyancy has a greater effect on the heavier weight.

Until finally, there is no buoyancy left in the vacuum.

Otto von Guericke did not invent airship travel, but he inspired Francesco Lana de Terzi to design an airship that obtains its lift with the aid of vacuum spheres.

Unfortunately, such an airship cannot be built with the materials available today, as the vacuum spheres would always be heavier than they could lift.

We balloonists talk about the lifting gas or the hot air that carries the balloon.

But in fact, it is neither the lifting gas nor the hot air that carries the balloon, but the ambient air.

Strictly speaking, the lifting gas or hot air only serves to give the balloon envelope its shape.

This allows it to displace the ambient air and generate lift.

Most balloons today use hot air; only very few are filled with hydrogen as a lifting gas.

In central Germany, the Bitterfeld Aviation Association Bitterfelder Verein für LUftfahrt is the home of the gas balloon.

It operates the only gas balloon launch site in central Germany.

Gas balloons take off regularly from the balloon launch site located 30 kilometres north of Leipzig.

And every time, they prove that Archimedes' principle of static lift can also be applied to air, as aerostatics.