Liquid Nitrogen

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

Physics class we were experimenting with some. Tried the flower/pingpong ball thing and it was really cool.

Well at least until I tried pouring some on my hand...

Felt like a knife penetrating it... Apparently, the Leidenfrost effect only works if you pour it at the back of you hand and not on your palm(which I did:(). As I understand it forms a mini lake which cools your skin enough to let some LN2 touch your skin.

The sting feels better now.

[Neverfly]

I will now proceed to make fun of you;)

[cjl]

Heh - yeah, you don't really want to try that...

Have you tried making ice cream with it yet? Add LN2 to ice cream mix. Wait. Enjoy. No need for stirring - the LN2 aerates it as it evaporates.

[Swift]

Heh - yeah, you don't really want to try that...

Have you tried making ice cream with it yet? Add LN2 to ice cream mix. Wait. Enjoy. No need for stirring - the LN2 aerates it as it evaporates.
Make sure all trapped LN2 has turned to gas before digging spoon in and eating (if you think it hurts on your hand, try your tongue).

[cjl]

Very true - give it PLENTY of time after you think it has finished.

[NEOWatcher]

Heh - yeah, you don't really want to try that...

Have you tried making ice cream with it yet? Add LN2 to ice cream mix. Wait. Enjoy. No need for stirring - the LN2 aerates it as it evaporates.
Sounds better than the dry ice method (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/289ac50bc45cc010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html) which does require stirring (although the ingredients are easier to come by for most of us).

[Swift]

One other fun LN2 game is to blow up a ballon (air is fine), tie it closed, and dip it into the liquid nitrogen. As the air chills the pressure drops and the ballon wiil collapse. Eventually you will get some liquidified air rolling around in the ballon. Take it out and let it warm back up and the ballon will re-expand.

I tried freezing fruit and smashing it. A banana worked pretty well, but we didn't give the orange enough time and when we smashed it, we had chunks of partially frozen orange flying around.

[Lord Jubjub]

Could fill a balloon with liquid nitrogen? wonder how fast it would take to burst?

[Ronald Brak]

You were nowhere near as foolish as the chap who impressed his friends by putting some liquid N2 in his mouth. Then, since he pulled that off without getting hurt, he then decided to swallow some. The doctors had to invent a new word to describe his condition.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

One other fun LN2 game is to blow up a ballon (air is fine), tie it closed, and dip it into the liquid nitrogen. As the air chills the pressure drops and the ballon wiil collapse. Eventually you will get some liquidified air rolling around in the ballon. Take it out and let it warm back up and the ballon will re-expand.

We actually tried this today. The air inside shrank so much that it looked like an airless balloon. Brought it out and the rubber expanded slower than air which resulted in an uncomfortable pop.


You were nowhere near as foolish as the chap who impressed his friends by putting some liquid N2 in his mouth. Then, since he pulled that off without getting hurt, he then decided to swallow some. The doctors had to invent a new word to describe his condition.

Is it this (http://www.darwinawards.com/personal/personal2000-25.html?) guy.


Another cool thing we did was to pour some LN2 in a conical flask which was sealed with rubber and in the rubber was a straw coming out so the only exit passage was through the straw. When a lot of LN2 is put it can actually start shooting off mini ice pieces and lots of white gas through the tube which is a pretty cool effect.

[Ronald Brak]

Is it this guy.

That's our guy! I read about him at the same time I read about someone blowing up a bathroom sink with a drink bottle filled with liquid nitrogen. Not sure if the sink cracked from the sudden cold or what (or if the story is even true).

[Tog_]

That's our guy! I read about him at the same time I read about someone blowing up a bathroom sink with a drink bottle filled with liquid nitrogen. Not sure if the sink cracked from the sudden cold or what (or if the story is even true).

If he sealed the bottle, then let the liquid N2 warm up, the expanding gas would have nowhere to go. It's the same thing that makes a dry ice bomb work. The "fun" part is that there not really a way to make a reliable fuse for it. Maybe with proper measurements there would be, but the common method is to just add stuff, seal it and throw it far and fast.

[DyerWolf]

If he sealed the bottle, then let the liquid N2 warm up, the expanding gas would have nowhere to go. It's the same thing that makes a dry ice bomb work. The "fun" part is that there not really a way to make a reliable fuse for it. Maybe with proper measurements there would be, but the common method is to just add stuff, seal it and throw it far and fast.

Much like the MRE bombs the grunts play with. A tiny bottle of tabasco sauce sounds like a .50 cal round.

[pilgrim]

You can dip your hand in and out of liquid nitrogen if you do it quickly. I also heard of a guy who used to splash liquid nitrogen on his face to cool down during summer. From the sound of it, the swallowing thing really didn't sound pleasant, though.

Balloons look neat when chucked in it, too. Though the things I'd recomend (particularly if you have a hammer around) is putting in gummy bears or blue tack. They shatter like glass when hit with the hammer and then soften back to normal!! I tried throwing in an open can of coke once but it wasn't as good. The coke fizzed out and I was stuck with a few inches thick layer of coke ice at the bottom of the container. Bannanas are cool to smash with a hammer (yes, I like doing experiments involving smashing things with hammers) after a nitrogen bath, too.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

Ah blutac would definitely be good. Rubber acts real funny when it comes to cold stuff.

Also cool is simply pouring a glass on the table. I forms mini balls of ice which go around in circles real fast. Touching it will make it disappear.

I think there is a video somewhere of a guy emptying an entire tank in the swimming pool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2mj-Sq2oeo


BTW: :lol: I love youtube comments. Makes you want to remove the "intelligent" tag given to the human race.

The liquid nitrogen was awesomely cold, but there wasn't enough of it to freeze the whole pool. On the contrary, the pool melted the nitrogen, or vaporized it anyway...awesome sight to see though. I'd love to see that in person, with a bigger bowl and pool.

[Siguy]

What about filling a flask with LN2 and putting a balloon around the rim?

[mike alexander]

A fun one is to wind a helix out of soldering wire with a weight on one end and chill it down. Take it out and if you pull on the weight it will bounce up and down until the solder warms back up a bit.

I saw that done in 1959 and still think it is among the coolest (!) demos ever.

[mike alexander]

I feel blessed. There's 5,000 liters of the stuff in a tank out back. We make LN2 ice cream every few months and since it freezes so fast there's no time for any decent sized crystals to form, resulting in about as silky an ice cream as you can imagine.

[Siguy]

Wow, I wish I had 5,000 liters of LN2.

*imagines the fun*

[mike alexander]

There's eight mass spectrometers in the lab and they drink a lot of nitrogen. It's cheaper and more convenient to boil the gas off a big cryo tank than lug endless pressurized cylinders in and out, not to mention safer.

[Ronald Brak]

I'll just mention to all the boys and girls at home that a nitrogen spill can be deadly in a confined space. Too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen can cause you to pass out without warning. Apparently people have died from this.

[Ronald Brak]

As for balloons, they would shatter if you tried to fill them with liquid nitrogen. As for putting a balloon over the neck of a bottle of liquid nitrogen, 28 grams of liquid nitrogen (one mole) will create 22.4 liters of gas so you'd either want a small amount of liquid nitrogen or a big balloon.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

Thanks for the advice Ronald. We actually open all windows and doors as well as the air cond in the lab trying to be very safe.

I'm adding Liquid Nitrogen to the list of things I will get when* I get rich. This would go well with electron microscope and human catapult.



*unlikely, but I can fantasize, can't I?! :D