File this under don’t try at home, but there is a safe and painless way to dip your hand into liquid nitrogen. The secret? The Leidenfrost effect, which briefly shields your hand from -196C temps with a layer of bubbles.
PopSci’s extremely brave Theodore Gray trusts in science and tests the phenomenon with his own mitt, coming out unscathed. With his hand in the frigid vat for a split second, Gray says he “barely felt the cold at all”. The principle that kept him from losing his hand is the same one you spot when water droplets fall onto a scalding hot skillet – rather than evaporating immediately, they bounce around on a thin layer of steam. And when you stick your hand into the sub-zero nitrogen – boom – another instant layer of protective gas. Just make sure to pull yourself out as quickly as you went in, because those bubbles don’t last long and frostbite is no fun.
Gray says the Leidenfrost effect (named after German doctor Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost) should, in theory, protect your hand from a vat of molten lead. But, yeah, we’re not going to blame him for passing on that experiment. [PopSci]
Josh
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:30 AMMythbusters did it, cept with really hot… stuff
flamingdronge
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:20 AM’twas molten lead
Blake
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:41 AMYeah I saw that mythbusters ep.
They had molten lead at 370 Degrees Celsius at first which still cooked a sausage, they needed to get it above 450 Celsius before they were crazy enough to put their hands into it.
Gino Rodrigo
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:55 AMDidn’t Mythbusters pull this stunt off – with molten lead???
Tom
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:26 AMThe links go to PopSci but it says it can’t find the article. I did a search on ‘liquid nitrogen’, ‘leidenfrost’, ‘theo’ and ‘theodore gray’ but all didn’t return it. I’d love to read it in full – does anyone have a working direct link? :)
Cameron
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 11:05 AMI get that a lot with PopSci articles. It looks like they want to automatically redirect you to popsci.com.au where the article doesn’t exist. Would be nice if they turned that off when the article doesn’t exist.
Tom
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12:09 PMAh, cheers Cameron – that’s exactly why I can’t find it. I’d love an easy way to turn off that redirect when I don’t want it – I can’t even get to popsci.com. Argh!
Aleks
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 11:07 AMWell, I have to admit, I first saw the lead version done on an Australian educational show (The Curiosity Show)back in the 70s and they had to use extremely well purified lead to ensure that it didn’t stick … and I’ve done the hand dunk into liquid nitrogen myself … weirdest feeling in the world!!