The title should have read, "3.5 Minutes of Nothing + Liquid nitrogen + 1500 ping pong balls"

*promote

This is most likely the most AMAZING filament eruption to be caught on video. It is caused by a little process called magnetic reconnection. It's a little process that gives us our solar flares, these filaments, CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections), auroras, and the possible potential for very dangerous radiation storms every few millennium--give or take a few. Basically, plasma flows along these field lines of magnetism. When things get out of hand, then those field lines distort and change and all of a sudden things get very dangerous (AND sometimes beautiful). The faster the magnetic field changes the faster the particles will travel making them more and more dangerous as the events unfold fast enough giving them more energy (kinetic & heat), which in turn if directed at us means it penetrates much further into our protective field and anything outside of the field, crispy--in the shredded DNA, cells, you name it sense.

Occasionally, Earth's magnetic field breaks down a bit (if I remember why correctly it was a certain "sequence" within our magnetic shield and it reacts badly with the Sun's--don't quote me though, I really need to look it back up again it was a very long time ago I remember this from), if a large solar flare directed towards Earth ever happened before Earth had enough time to fully build back it's strength we would be FAR more in trouble than usual, but this would be a rare event. Usually what happens is that the charged particles follow Earth's magnetic lines and go to the poles, which is the one place on Earth where you do suffer the most radiation from the Sun (basically wherever the poles are as the plasma follows the polarity or "field lines" of Earth's magnetic field). It's also why the closer you are to the poles the better your view is of the aurora as the particles streaming in, if there is a sufficient quantity moving very fast (the more energy, especially kinetic--speed, the farther the penetration into the atmosphere and the lower the aurora becomes visible), will enter the atmosphere and begin to be absorbed by various elements that our atmosphere is compromised of like Nitrogen.

Here's a quick explanation. Basically, the particles collide with atoms of molecules/elements or anything in the higher atmosphere, exciting their electrons into higher energy levels, which is known fundamentally in science as quantum leap/atomic transition/electron transition it's one of the atom's most fundamental abilities dealing with "extra energy" being pushed into a system that wants balance (this is a very common process that happens ALL DAY long, EVERYWHERE around you; it transfers photons essentially--pure energy--BUT, what is the energy in the form of as it's energy level makes it do very many different things; you could see things, what you consider the normal range of light--it's EXACTLY how light goes THROUGH a window--it doesn't go through the window it is transferred via the atoms from one side to the next, this is ALSO why people are trying to get invisibility to work as it just might; HEAT is another one that is transferred all the time--it literally radiates outwards from our bodies and then we are surrounded by excited electrons and the infrared range of light we are putting out, the heat of a human body...or any animal; this goes on and on, it happens everywhere and as I said ALL-THE-TIME, it's perhaps one of the most critical processes and abilities of the atom and how photons also transfer their energy between areas in a direction; a little off-topic information for those that don't realize how much is going on, everywhere, all the time, at any given second...it's a complicated, but beautiful world)), and making them give off light that we see when the charge they've taken on finally returns the molecule/element's electrons to their normal orbits in the electron shell; the color depends on what molecule/element was being bombarded and how much energy was involved from the particle that hit it). This of course transfers all the energy that those particles had and we get a nice light show.

/I thought I'd fill my promote with something useful; ...on why these happen...
//edit-For a little more clarity, grammar and a bit more information that I hope some will appreciate if it helps anyone learn something or atleast go look up some of this and learn some on their own; taking an interest in science, it's one of the most important things in the world that we have.
///Spreading science is just as important; it's the one literal thing we do/use that has ever allowed us to deal with the worst problems we have: fear, pain, death, disease, sorrow, despair, ignorance, etc... Science IS the light in the dark. It is our best hope for mankind's continued existence and a good life. It is the single most important activity we now do as a group; it's our savior from us and what's out there...

Next test. A metal dewar of liquid nitrogen, or a tank of acetylene.

>> ^brycewi19:

Seriously, why the hell would you wear a short sleeve polo when doing an experiment with liquid nitrogen?
You got the gloves but are exposing the forearms to all that splashback.


http://videosift.com/video/Hand-vs-Liquid-Nitrogen-and-the-Leidenfrost-Effect

I'm pretty sure the liquid would vaporize before hitting your arm. Or at least that's what they're banking on...>> ^brycewi19:

Seriously, why the hell would you wear a short sleeve polo when doing an experiment with liquid nitrogen?
You got the gloves but are exposing the forearms to all that splashback.

Seriously, why the hell would you wear a short sleeve polo when doing an experiment with liquid nitrogen?
You got the gloves but are exposing the forearms to all that splashback.

As I said, the quote is my own, from another video on the subject.

As for the toxicity of ammonia, here is a link to the Health Effects portion of the CDC's Toxicological Profile for Ammonia.

Lots to read, but basically it shows that, except in huge doses of concentrated ammonia, ammonia is readily converted by the liver into urea (hence the ammonia smell of urine). Ingesting ammonia in quantities that are harmful (though still not fatal) causes burns, and ulceration of the mouth. Obviously if there was that much in the food, there would be a problem.

The report points out, "In a study of volunteers, ingestion of a single ammonium chloride tablet (approximately 15 mg NH4+/kg/day) led to a small transient increase (33% above fasting levels) in arterial blood concentrations of ammonium ion in 11 out of 20 subjects (Conn 1972); no change was noted in the remaining nine subjects in this group.[...]These data indicate that ingested ammonia is readily absorbed from the digestive tract and that the liver plays a large role in removing it from the blood (Conn 1972).



Basically, the FDA allows the use of ammonia to sterilize food products because, 1. the quantities needed to harm a human would cause said humans not to eat the products and 2. being naturally occurring, and necessary for life (for the provision of nitrogen for amino acid synthesis), the ingestion of ammonia in these quantities has no long-term health effects.

I'm not trying to argue that eating that pink goo is good for you - but the obsession with the ammonia is the wrong approach to attacking it. Phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. are also poisonous in the right quantities, and they are also all necessary for human life.

If there is any common thread to my rants here on the sift, it's that people attacking the wrong subject, regardless of their intentions, makes them look stupid and reduces their credibility to those of us who care to know the truth. I completely agree with Maher's point that the republicans just attack anything the liberals support, but when he makes that point using misleading/wrong information, he's just as bad as them.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Skeeve:
While I don't disagree with Maher's point, I'm getting really sick of people screaming about the ammonia used to treat the pink goo that is turned into chicken nuggets. As I said regarding another video:
"ammonia is a natural chemical that is necessary for human life. The amount of ammonia one would have to ingest to be harmful to a human is huge, and actually ingesting that much would be unthinkable because of the horrendous taste it would impart to the food."

This is like seeing someone sprinkle some sodium-free salt on their food and saying, "OMG that's potassium chloride! That's the lethal chemical in a lethal injection! That's going to kill you!!"
People just don't seem to care that a lot of chemicals that are popularly considered "toxic" are necessary for life or require unfathomably large doses to be harmful.

Where the hell is that quote from and is there any truth to it is what needs to be asked. To me that sounds like something a PR person would say, like in that video about Global Warming where they made the point that "CO2 is natural".
You've got more to answer for Skeeve and if you don't I'm bidding you a hearty GOOD DAY To You Sir!

Koreans often remark that they've bought a bag of nitrogen and found a few flakes of chips in it.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'sixty symbols, guinness, science, beer, ale, carbonation, nitrogen, widget' to 'sixty symbols, guinness, science, beer, ale, carbonation, nitrogen, widget, 60' - edited by RhesusMonk

>> ^Psychologic:

Safety glasses are optional when you're pretty sure nothing will go wrong.

Safety glasses are optional when you're pretty sure when it goes off they won't help.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'science liquid nitrogen prank' to 'science, liquid nitrogen, prank' - edited by xxovercastxx

This looks like an awesome gift for a kid with a dewer of liquid nitrogen.

Well... Their diagram is a little funny. I think you could do it if the car or track was a superconductor, but I don't see the reason to make both superconducting.

Superconductors levitate by generating an equal and opposite magnetic field outside the superconductor to expel the magnetic flux inside (think Lenz's Law). The Meissner Effect is naively perfect diamagnetism.

I look at this and think it is totally doable. If you want I can send the video to guy I know that studies superconductors. I think most physicists would probably say that you could make this.

>> ^dannym3141:

Pretty sure that's possible, i don't care to speculate how in an engineering fashion, but sure, you can get them to follow a track and even suspend them upside down if you like, i don't how well they can stick to the track during fast turns, perhaps you'd need to tilt the surface gradually.
I assume it'd be easier to cool the track rather than the cars, otherwise you're gonna have to wire up the cars to deliver coolant which would destroy the point. The idea of nitrogen gas coming out of the tiny cars for the whole video is a bit of a suggestion it's not real. That's assuming he was putting nitrogen in the car in that weird pipe.
Shit, they do stuff similar to this with trains full of people in some places. Probably a bit of a tamer ride because of the much higher masses involved.
(I study physics, but maybe someone knows more than me about the current progress on all that)

Pretty sure that's possible, i don't care to speculate how in an engineering fashion, but sure, you can get them to follow a track and even suspend them upside down if you like, i don't how well they can stick to the track during fast turns, perhaps you'd need to tilt the surface gradually.

I assume it'd be easier to cool the track rather than the cars, otherwise you're gonna have to wire up the cars to deliver coolant which would destroy the point. The idea of nitrogen gas coming out of the tiny cars for the whole video is a bit of a suggestion it's not real. That's assuming he was putting nitrogen in the car in that weird pipe.

Shit, they do stuff similar to this with trains full of people in some places. Probably a bit of a tamer ride because of the much higher masses involved.

(I study physics, but maybe someone knows more than me about the current progress on all that)

It contains Nitrogen, and Sulfur, and Phosphates--so does cat shit.

To Your Health!