Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology Throws Boiling Water in Extreme Cold, the Result Is Dramatic

Physics Professor, Jeff Terry from the Illinois Institute of Technology, threw a cup of hot water in the air to help understand what happens when it turns extremely cold. (Jeff Terry/Illinois Institute of Technology)

As the United States plunged into extreme cold weather, social media became replete with viral videos of winter stunts, surprising phenomenon, and fun and laughter that has at least been able to keep the web a little warmer.

But outside, it’s been so cold that when physics professor Jeff Terry threw a cup of hot water into the air, it crystallised in a dramatic fashion well before reaching the ground.

Terry from the Illinois Institute of Technology captured on video the moment he threw a cup of hot water into the air and shared his experiment on Twitter.

He tweeted, “Now this is a real cold weather science experiment. At -14 F/-26 C, boiling water quickly condenses into a cloud of microdroplets. These can freeze due to large surface to volume ratio.”

He was however soon to caution others if they try it. “Never throw hot water towards anyone. Being hit by boiling water is unpleasant.

Football Fans Break into Snowball Fight

Continuing the winter fun on social media, Bristol City and Swansea fans in England have some light moments while waiting at a railway station on Saturday. A video shared by @okiedoke10 showed commuters throwing snow balls at each other.

Skids and Falls

When there’s snow and ice everywhere, getting out of home can be a challenge. But for these two youngsters, getting out of home meant lots of fun as they clumsily skidded their way to the car.

Tyler Donahue shared this video on Twitter from Minnesota.

Extremely Mesmerizing Frozen Methane Bubbles

This viral video is so rare and mesmerising that it has been watched 5.5 million times. Shared by Lennart on his Instagram page, the video was taken in Abraham Lake in Alberta, Canada. The frozen methane bubbles turned the whole lake into nature’s art piece.

The bubbles, however, are extremely dangerous if popped as methane is a very inflammable gas. These methane bubbles form when dead leaves and other organic matter fall into the lake and accumulate in the lakebed where with time, they decompose with the help of bacteria to release methane. The phenomena is not special to Abraham Lake and such methane gas formation happens across many lakes in arctic, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Freezing Soap Bubble Tells a Fairytale

In the extreme cold, even an extremely fragile soap bubble can freeze into an piece of art. When watched in slow motion, the scene is extremely mesmerising.

Soap bubbles form when a layer of water molecules get sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules. In extreme cold, the water layer can freeze before the soap bubble pops.

The colder it is outside, the longer the soap bubble will maintain its shape, Bryan Wunar, director of community initiatives at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago told National Geographic.

“The air inside the bubble will diffuse faster if it’s warmer and slower if it’s colder,” Wunar said. “If it’s very cold out, such as the negative temperatures we’ve seen this week, the bubbles can form ice crystals.

“Instead of popping, [the bubbles] crack after forming into a crystalline structure.”