Melissa Huff
Chemical Engineer
Non Forest Service
My favorite science experience was when my physics classmates in college and I watched our professor dip a rubber ball into liquid nitrogen. He then dropped it, and the ball shattered. This is due to the temperature of the liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees Celsius or -321 degrees Fahrenheit). As you cool a gas down, the atoms move less and less rapidly. Eventually, the attractive forces between the atoms hold them together as a liquid. If you cool the rubber ball down in the liquid nitrogen, the atoms in the rubber become locked into position so they can’t move past each other. The ball becomes very brittle, and it can easily shatter.
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