buffo
Cool effects, but lousy execution. What ever happened to safety?
Sorry Johnathan, but if you were trying to convince me of your safety consciousness, that video didn't do it. Where are your gloves? And what is the little kid (maybe 7 years old?) doing that close to the pan with the frozen orange in it? You should have had a chair or two blocking the path between the island and the counter-top so he couldn't get so close.
I agree it's fun to play with LN2, and I'll admit I've done a few of the things you did in that video, but with that many people around I would have been a *lot* safer, both to set the proper example and to protect myself and the guests.
For one, I would have been wearing goggles (or at least safety glasses) to protect my eyes from splashes while pouring. Also when pouring from the flask, I would have worn an apron. And I would have been wearing gloves whenever working over the open pan of LN2. (For the record, I wear gloves even when working with dry ice.)
Have you ever seen the aftermath of an LN2 burn? I have, and it's positively HORRIBLE. I've seen fingers blackened by the stuff. In one case, it resulted in a partial amputation. (Gangrene is nasty.) Just one slip with that dewar flask while you were pouring and you would have been in deep trouble. (And what if that orange had dropped out of the tongs while you had it suspended nearly a foot above the pan? That shit would have splashed everywhere.)
OK - no one got hurt and everyone had fun, and they even got to eat ice cream. Yay!But it was still irresponsible in my book.
Adam
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). With the orange, what wasn't obvious in the video is that the orange had no liquid nitrogen remaining on it or in it (It looked like I was pulling it from a pan full of LN2 and that it was full of it, however all the LN2 in the pan had vaporized and I had let the orange sit in the open air of the empty pan for about a minute). The liquid nitrogen never made it to the pan that the kids were standing next to (agreed I should have waited longer, or had it further from them, this was my very first demonstration). The pot got so cold it produced water vapor and a thick layer of ice for the following 15-20 minutes. Trust me my safety standards have gone up dramatically since then, I even bought a pair of goggles. BTW, your right, I totally could have dropped the orange that was a result of my lack of experience, luckily I didn't because the tongs were perforated. But, I've thrown the liquid in the air before and during the summer it vaporizes almost immediately after being thrown. One of my college friends said his professor threw a cup of it over the classes head! (definitely a bad idea). Like you said, it definitely lacked industry safety standards, but I've been working with the stuff a while now, and not only have my safety standards gone up, been I've become more skillful with the stuff. I've been burned by it b4 (that was while working on a demonstration at the science theater where I volunteered. They had a difficult demo that involved closing it off in film canisters to make little rockets.), it hurt but since I was only exposed to a tiny amount, it did no damage. I don't have any video of my other demonstrations, but believe me I normally have goggles, and I normally have the "active" area blocked off. The little kid (my 8 year old brother, you were close, less than a year off 
), wouldn't stay back although I kept pushing him away. He wasn't tall enough to see over the island. Eventually my dad pulled him away and held him up.
Originally Posted by Dr Laser
