Science on the Tundra

We have done it! Witness boiling water thrown into Fargo's subzero air:



It was a little warm for this experiment – a mere -15F – but I figure it was nicely unwindy, and this might be as cold as it gets this weekend during the day. Despite Katie's reaction on the movie's soundtrack, it did work. It was kind of a lot of water, so some of it did hit the ground instead of turning to frozen vapor. A smaller volume might have converted more completely.

Blowing bubbles is interesting. We didn't get the "skyrocketing" effect our pal Dave suggested, where the hot air in the bubble shoots up through the cold air (I didn't chill the bubble solution, either, as he'd suggested we do). Instead, a blown bubble behaves like a regular bubble, until it suddenly turns from clear to translucent – it has frozen!:

If it pops in the air, it looks a little like broken glass, and the filmy shards drift slowly to the ground.

If it pops on the ground, it looks like a deflated balloon, like this:

Good stuff! If it gets colder, I'll try to repeat some of the experiments. Also, it'll take some time for my fingers to rewarm...