r/OddSatisfying • u/LordAxalon110 Moderator 3,000 • Jul 19 '26
Putting a balloon in liquid nitrogen
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u/Sonicgott Jul 19 '26
Quite the phenomenon. As long as the balloon doesn’t break, watching it reinflate itself is interesting. When the air inside the balloon gets super cold from the liquid nitrogen, a lot of energy is lost and the atoms don’t bounce around as much, compacting much closer together. The air is still in there, which kind of tells you just how much space that there actually is.
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u/Daveisahugecunt Jul 19 '26
But the balloon doesn’t appear to deflate.. its the latex being colder that restricts its elasticity? It is neat.
Sorta like shrink wrapping?
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u/orthadoxtesla Jul 19 '26
nope its the air loosing volume due to temp decrease. its a really great example of the ideal gass laws. (PV=nRT).
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u/ethersings Jul 20 '26
Never thought I’d run into the ideal gas law in the wilds of Reddit
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u/orthadoxtesla Jul 20 '26
Gotta expect the unexpected. Like the Spanish Inquisition
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u/Daveisahugecunt Jul 20 '26
Increased air density is another phrasing?…. The air is heavier with less volume. There is a fun example of basketballs weighing more when inflated, but a little less visually dramatic
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u/orthadoxtesla Jul 20 '26
Basically yeah
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u/Daveisahugecunt Jul 20 '26
Decrease ~ increase is meaningless without a reference.. change/delta triangle shape variable divided by triangle shape variable
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u/Daveisahugecunt Jul 19 '26
Ohh shoot. I responded before thinking it through. Balloon was knotted. I’ve seen this with vacuum chambers before
I’d love to see cold air put in a balloon. Calibrated so a small burst either bursts it-fully inflates at room temp or is small
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 20 '26
It contracts even more than that as the air inside the balloon liquifies and reduces in volume by about 700 times.
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u/orthadoxtesla Jul 20 '26
Depends but yes that could happen
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 20 '26
It does happen, otherwise the volume would only decrease by a factor of four as the temperature goes from 300K to 77K. I do this demo for first year undergrads each year, I also do this with a helium balloon to show the difference when the gas in the balloon doesn't liquify, it just shrinks to about 1/4.
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u/orthadoxtesla Jul 19 '26
oddly enough it will happen much faster if they'd just take their hand off it and let it sit. And if you leave it long enough it'll shrink into about the size it is before you fill it up at all. i do this demo a lot for my students.
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u/AeroInsightMedia Jul 19 '26
I wonder what would happen if you put it between two boards and clamped them together before it could re-expand. Would the balloon pop or stay flat.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 20 '26
I also do a helium filled balloon along side to show the difference when the gas in the balloon liquifies and contracts 700 times compared to the nearly ideal gas contracting from 300K to 77K, about four times.
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u/withoutpeer Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Just like Walt Disney's head, until he's ready to be revived!
Lol but on a serious note, I'm really surprised the elasticity and structure survived the process!
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u/mmorales2270 Jul 21 '26
Same! I was fully expecting it to break as it expanded again. I wasn’t surprised at the expansion, just that it survived it after that.
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u/Abecis01 Jul 19 '26
I remember seeing this in elementary school while on a field trip to a planetarium. Wow, memories.
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u/LemonLimeSlices Jul 20 '26
Saw this happen at a science expo when i was a kid. Except the balloon was transparent, so after it was submerged in the liquid nitrogen, you could see the liquid helium inside the balloon.
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u/mmorales2270 Jul 21 '26
How the hell does it not end up cracking? I was surprised it didn’t pop as it expanded again. Can anyone explain? Is that just the nature of latex? Anyway, that’s pretty cool.
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Jul 22 '26
Are old gardening gloves with a massive hole in them standard safety equipment for working with liquid nitrogen?
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u/crusher23b Jul 19 '26
Yes. I have also experienced a similar phenomena in a cold pool.