Kirby sucks. It’s kind of his whole thing, and that’s why we love the little pink dude. I’ve been inhaling enemies with Kirby for the last 20 years, but until now I never thought about scaling his abilities up to the real world. For instance: could Kirby vacuum up a person?

In my latest Because Science, I’m looking to fluid dynamics to answer this incredibly important question. The first thing we have to determine is the pressure differential between Kirby’s open maw and the surrounding atmosphere. A difference in pressure is the same phenomena that drives air into your lungs when you inhale. As your chest expands and your diaphragm pulls down, the increased volume lowers the pressure inside, and the atmosphere tries to equalize that pressure by rushing in. Your lungs, however, can function just fine with a differential of way less than one pound per square inch. Kirby would have to create a vacuum much, much stronger than this to suck a person into his mouth.

So can the little guy do it? I think so, and in my latest video above, I can prove it with airplanes, spaceships, and one very unfortunate crab.

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