Jim Sholes, age 9, of Clendenin, West Virginia, for his question:

Does air have weight?

The air in a fair‑sized living room weighs a hundred pounds or more, about as much as you do. This seems strange because we cannot see it, feel it, or touch it. We are not even aware of air around us.

The atmosphere, which is the air, reaches hundreds of miles above our heads. ,It is wrapped around the entire globe like a thick, invisible blanket. The weight of all this filmy air is estimated to be about one millionth of the entire solid earth.  And all this weight presses down on our heads wherever we go.

We say that the weight of the air above us is atmospheric pressure. Imagine the high column of air which presses down on'one square inch at sea level. The weight of that air. is estimated to be 14.7 pounds, We walk around. under this weight of air all the time and never notice it.