1,500 Ping Pong Balls Explode

[YosemiteSam]

This is a pretty cool video.

Basically, he pours liquid nitrogen into a bottle and screws a cap on the bottle. (bad idea), then puts it in a trash can with warm water in it. This causes the liquid nitrogen to warm up and become a gas faster causing massive pressure in the closed bottle. He then pours 1,500 ping pong balls into the trash can.

Once the pressure builds up enough that the bottle can no longer handle the pressure, the bottle explodes and the trash can and ping pong balls go flying!

The video is about 4 1/2 minutes. He explains the process before he does it. It's interesting, but for those of you who want instance gratification. You can forward to the 2:20 mark and he begins the process. If you just want to see the explosion, jump to the 3:45 mark. If you can't watch the whole thing, I recommend watching from the 2:20 mark as seeing the process is cool too.

[youtube]JJ9yn8vLdig[/youtube]

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Cool.

[youtube]Zj3sIFtfb4g[/youtube]

Wish it had a slomo view of it.

 

[NorthTexan95]

Instead of ping pong balls they should use 1,500 super balls (the small, rubber, highly bouncy kids toys). Those would be much more spectacular.

Of course, they could always use Happy Fun Balls (do not taunt Happy Fun Ball).

 

[YosemiteSam]

Instead of ping pong balls they should use 1,500 super balls (the small, rubber, highly bouncy kids toys). Those would be much more spectacular.

Of course, they could always use Happy Fun Balls (do not taunt Happy Fun Ball).

How about rotten eggs. :laugh2:

 

[SaltwaterServr]

I had an intro chem professor at Texas State play with liquid nitrogen one day in class. He dipped a rose into it and then had a student tap it with a wooden dowel rod. Of course the rose shattered like glass.

He also took a piece of thin floppy disc plastic cut into a star shape, dipped it into the liquid nitrogen, and then threw it against a cork board. It stuck into the board like a chinese throwing star.

Pretty cool stuff.

On a tangent, that's where I think Mythbusters missed the boat with their ice bullet experiment. You don't use pure water ice, you use wood saw dust (literally dust, not shavings) and freeze it into your bullet mold. That might've actually worked. There was an experiment during WW2 to build a aircraft carrier out of the stuff to combat the wolf pack submarine attacks in the Atlantic. Enigma pretty much ended the need for it, but the material was incredibly strong and survived without refrigeration aid during a British summer.