Liquid Nitrogen Splash
Vincent Bugica and Shay Lampron
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics,
Miniterm March 31-April 08, 2008
"Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event."
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
Abstract
For this experiment our goal was to attempt to photograph a water droplet's splash into liquid nitrogen, and to hopefully take a picture with some parts of the splash freezing. To get these pictures, we used a splash box, time delay, photo gate, flash unit, and camera with manual shutter speed. These allowed us to adjust the point in which the flash unit discharged, and kept this point constant. Before taking the actual pictures, we first dropped water into plain water to check the set-up and settings before placing a watch glass full of liquid nitrogen and taking pictures of the splashes. The combination of liquid nitrogen and water resulted in some interesting splash shapes, as well as several pictures where the splash appears to actually be freezing in the air, though it's hard to tell exactly what is going on in them. As the gallery shows, the pictures were a success overall despite a somewhat rocky start.
This site as well as the content and images on it are © Copyright 2008 Vincent Bugica and Shay Lampron. All Rights Reserved.
Our thanks to Dr. Winters for the use of his equipment, other classmates for their responses to our work, and the Chemistry faculty for the unlimited amount of liquid nitrogen and supplies.
