40

Man Swallows
Liquid Nitrogen

Editor's Note: The following is another piece of email forwarded
to me from the wierd world of upper-level science. I cannot attest
to the veracity of this tale, as I am as yet unaquainted with its
author, but it does seem likely enough. I have formatted the
original message somewhat for the sake of readability, but I have
left the body of it intact.

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 10:08:54 +0000
Subject: Stupid Human Trick: Liquid Nitrogen

Thought you might appreciate this

This forwarded- A potential Darwin Award winner, from the
horses mouth, so to speak :-)

Dave

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of my friends is up for a Darwin Award. (True, he's not
dead, but you just have to do something likely to kill yourself to
win.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and so i get back to school, start my senior year, two research
projects, grad school applications, gre preparation, and the like.
the year started off good, but that all changed about two months
ago.

some of you (especially those at berkeley) may have heard
rumors of some bizarre accident that i was involved in. so here
is the truth, unabridged, for those of you who actually want to
know... around the second week of school, the society of
physics students held a roughly annual welcome back party,
and, as tradition dictates, we made our own ice cream with
liquid nitrogen (77 K) as a refrigerant and aerator. things were
going fine for a while. we spilled a little of the nitrogen onto a
table, and watched tiny little drops of it dance around. then
someone asked, "why does it do that?" that may have been the
point of no return. i, as is traditionally my role, answered that
the nitrogen evaporates at the surface of the table, which
provides a cushion of air for the drop to sit on, and thermally

Man Swallows
Liquid Nitrogen

Editor's Note: The following is another piece of email forwarded
to me from the wierd world of upper-level science. I cannot attest
to the veracity of this tale, as I am as yet unaquainted with its
author, but it does seem likely enough. I have formatted the
original message somewhat for the sake of readability, but I have
left the body of it intact.

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 10:08:54 +0000
Subject: Stupid Human Trick: Liquid Nitrogen

Thought you might appreciate this

This forwarded- A potential Darwin Award winner, from the
horses mouth, so to speak :-)

Dave

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of my friends is up for a Darwin Award. (True, he's not
dead, but you just have to do something likely to kill yourself to
win.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and so i get back to school, start my senior year, two research
projects, grad school applications, gre preparation, and the like.
the year started off good, but that all changed about two months
ago.

some of you (especially those at berkeley) may have heard
rumors of some bizarre accident that i was involved in. so here
is the truth, unabridged, for those of you who actually want to
know... around the second week of school, the society of
physics students held a roughly annual welcome back party,
and, as tradition dictates, we made our own ice cream with
liquid nitrogen (77 K) as a refrigerant and aerator. things were
going fine for a while. we spilled a little of the nitrogen onto a
table, and watched tiny little drops of it dance around. then
someone asked, "why does it do that?" that may have been the
point of no return. i, as is traditionally my role, answered that
the nitrogen evaporates at the surface of the table, which
provides a cushion of air for the drop to sit on, and thermally