Shatter Metal... With Liquid Nitrogen!

At room temperature, pewter is a soft metal that is easily formed into new shapes. All of that changes once it's cooled with liquid nitrogen!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• pewter
• cup
• bell
• shatter
• brittle
• liquid
• nitrogen
• science
• education
• frostbite
• theater
• jefferson
• lab
• jlab

[pikachuluver611]

if the liquid nigtrogen boils, howcome the cup freezes?

[JeffersonLab]

@pikachuluver611 Because 'boil' doesn't mean 'hot.' When something's boiling, it's changing from a liquid to a gas. Different things boil at different temperatures. Nitrogen just happens to boil at what we consider to be a low temperature.

[haddick90]

How are you able to just thorw the liquid behind you i mean its a fluid but it turns into a Gas again but isnt in your lab so much nitrogen gas then wont u get sick or is it dangerous??

[JeffersonLab]

@haddick90 78% of the air is nitrogen gas, so it normally doesn't make you sick. So little of it was used that you'd be hard pressed to measure any change in the concentration of nitrogen gas in the room.

[haddick90]

@JeffersonLab but it looks like you poured very much nitrogen out :D but oine question--> it doesnt get wet so its not Wet bur liquid..in my opinion is that strange :D

[JeffersonLab]

@haddick90 The room is so hot relative to nitrogen's boiling point that it doesn't stay as a liquid for long. Pour a little bit of water onto a really hot frying pan. The water quickly boils away. Would you say that the frying pan was wet? Well, maybe for a short time it was. Same sort of thing with the liquid nitrogen.

[jorge10928]

Liquid Nitrogen is the solution to everything!

[JeffersonLab]

@Weapon283 Because the room is hot enough for it to do so. Imagine the the room was hundreds of degrees and you threw some water on the desk. The water would boil because the room, and everything in it, is far too hot for it to stay as a liquid. That's what the liquid nitrogen is experiencing. It just has a much lower boiling point than water does.

[g0rsk13g4n9st4]

@haddick90 no, it boils against surfaces that are at room temperature.

[phoenixrisinghigh]

@haddick90 what the lab guys said, that little bit in the cup basically disperses into enough gas to MAYBE make a large balloon, but the total change in the atmospheric concentration would amount to the scientific vernacular of "jack-squat"

[TheRandomStephen]

oh ya know just gonna throw it all on the computers

[JeffersonLab]

@Chickenz805 It's not "so cold that it boils." It's "it boils at a low temperature."