hehe... sounded like a good idea at the time...famous last words.
I love science. I learned I am related to Bill Nye the Science Guy on my wife's side (I would have married her anyway, but that's a different thread
) Aaaannnyway... I have this great recipe for Instant Ice Cream. I think I've posted it...maybe not. But it is 50% dessert and 50% performance art. In addition to the regular ice cream makings, the secret ingredient is liquid nitrogen.
I made a batch at work one time. The ice cream was delicious and all my friends enjoyed it. Afterward we would play around with the liquid N, freezing things. Leaves would crumble, flower petals shattered, little drips dropped from waist height onto the tile floor made little bombs, hissing and smoking. All in good fun.
Not only is liquid N reeeeaaaaallllly cold, when it boils away it expands considerably. Like 800 times it's liquid volume. I took about a capful and poured it into a two liter plastic pop bottle. When I shook the bottle, it became rigid with pressure. I opened the cap and **WHOOOOSH** the gas came out!
Well, following the maxim of shadetree scientists everywhere, if some is good, more is better, right? Well I put about an inch in the bottom of the bottle, not even enough to connect all five of the little wells in the bottom of the bottle. Shake shake shake. Like. A. Rock. Well, I couldn't wrench the top off and quickly became bored with it and set down the bottle and went on my way. I really did forget about it and was back at work on the computer when the bottle exploded.
The sound was literally deafening. People came running from all over the floor, even from the floor below. What happened?! I could barely hear them, my ears were filled with ringing. I managed to talk my way out of it somehow. I had a large office at the time, and there was green plastic shrapnel everywhere. I found little green bits of twisted melted plastic for months afterward. But the most amazing part was that the cap to the could not be found. The only clue we had was a hole one inch in diameter in the ceiling tile directly above the place where the bottle blew.
That cap weighs, what, a fraction of an ounce? The hole it cut in the one inch thick acoustic tile was as clean as if it were laser drilled. No breaking out in the backside of the tile. I don't know, that cap was probably moving at the speed of sound. Cause I never heard of it again. To think I was shaking it around just minutes before...:shudder:. Like juggling a live hand grenade.
Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.