Frostbite Theater

Announcer: Frostbite Theater presents... Cold Cuts! No baloney!

Joanna and Steve: Just science!

Joanna: Hi! I'm Joanna!

Steve: And I'm Steve!

A while ago, I was at the mall and I saw this. And, the first thing that popped into my head was 'I wonder what would happen if we were to put this in liquid nitrogen?' Now, that's one thing I really love about science. If you have a question, you can, sometimes, do an experiment to find out what the answer is! Here at the Lab, we have a lot of liquid nitrogen, so that's not a problem. And, this thing was half price. Half price! How could I resist?

Joanna: A nice thing about experiments is that you can take what you've learned and apply it to new situations. So, what can we predict will happen using what we already know? Well, first off, we can probably safely say that this thing's going to float on the liquid nitrogen. And, since it's filled with some sort of gas, we can probably predict that it's going to shrink or collapse in on itself since we know from our earlier experiments with balloons that, when a gas gets cold, the particles slow down, causing the pressure to drop. We also know from other experiments that some things become brittle and break when they get cold, so maybe this thing will, too.

Steve: Just because we think we know what's going to happen doesn't mean that is what's going to happen. Theories are nice, but the proof is in the experiment. This thing could do something completely unexpected, or it could do nothing, which would be really disappointing. #noname So, let's do this!

Joanna: All right!

Steve: Okay? Ready?

It does float!

Joanna: Yep, it sure does.

Oh!

Steve: Oh, no!

Joanna: Little pieces are breaking off!

Steve: Yeah, little bits have already broken off!

Tell you what, let's ladle some on...

There we go...

It's not collapsing.

Joanna: Wow, I'm surprised.

Steve: Well, maybe a little.

Joanna: Now it might start. There we go!

Steve: Hee! Hee! Hee!

Joanna: Now it's starting to really collapse.

Koosh Ball: Pop!

Joanna: Woo!

Look at that!

Steve: So, even though it did self-destruct, which was unexpected, we still need to drop the thing, right?

Joanna: Oh, yeah!

Steve: So, let's get rid of this.

And I guess we'll just dump it out of here.

Joanna: Sounds good!

Steve: Three, two, one...

Koosh Ball: Shatter!

Joanna: Wow!

Steve: Holy cow!

Joanna: Thanks for watching! I hope you'll join us again soon for another experiment!

Steve: Yeah, that was fun!

Joanna: Yeah, at least it was your thing that broke this time, not like my pewter cup!

Steve: I said I was sorry!