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FOUR HUNDRED DEGREES BELOW ZERO 7.S
EVEN TIN AND RUBBER GET BRITTLE
Imi ersed in liquid air, this rubber cork and tin cup splintered when struck sharp blows, just as if they had been composed
of glass and porcelain respectively.
Still more were scientists surprised when the professor if he could not have the
it was found that bacteria were abso- frozen egg to show to his room-mate,
lutely unaffected by the low tempera- who was not a member of the class. The
ture of liquid hydrogen.
Curiosity would natturally
inspire one to
ask, "What would happen
to human flesh under
the influence of such
exceedingly low temperatures?"
After a fraction
of a minute's immersion
in liquid air,
human flesh would become
frozen so hard
that it could be cracked
and broken much as a piece of
solidified plaster of Paris. Of
course, flesh so treated would not
remain in that frozen condition and
w o u 1 d rapidly "thaw
out" in a normal atmosphere
and gradually
decay.
A college professor, at
Cornell University, once
froze an egg in liquid
air before a class in
physics, and one of the
students was so impressed
that he asked
request was granted,
and, with the egg in his
pocket, the student departed
for the dormitory,
but when he arrived, he
found, much to his dismay
and astonishment,
that the egg had broken
and become considerably
softer from the heat of
his body and was slowly
draining through his
pocket in a normal condition.
What benefit has humanity
gleaned from
these discoveries of
methods for producing
low temperatures? It
must be remembered
that science has been
wandering and exploring
a new realm and is
mustering its forces for
more extended research
in this field. What the
future holds we do not
know.