ALEX ASKS: A while ago, I asked what would happen if you microwaved a watermelon and you said not to do it. Fair enough, but what would happen if you put a watermelon in liquid nitrogen and then dropped it off of a tall building?
Alex, Alex, Alex… why all the animosity toward watermelons? First, you’re putting them in the microwave and next you’re deep freezing them and dropping them from great heights. You’re probably a big Gallagher fan, aren’t you? (Or too young to know who Gallagher is.) I don’t understand why you can’t just hack the watermelon to bits and eat it, but your question is an interesting one, so I’ll make an attempt to answer it. But first, a warning:
WARNING: Liquid nitrogen is a dangerously cold substance. Liquid nitrogen is not a toy. Do not handle liquid nitrogen without the supervision of a trained professional.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to your question. Liquid nitrogen is, of course, very cold. Somewhere in the neighborhood of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. Which means anything placed in liquid nitrogen, including watermelon, will be frozen solid in matter of seconds. This includes fingers and hands, which explains the warning above.
So the answer to what would happen if you placed a watermelon in liquid nitrogen and dropped it off of a tall building is simple. The watermelon would freeze as solid as an ice cube and break into a thousand pieces when dropped from even a moderate height of about 30 feet. And then you’d have a big mess to clean up and no watermelon to eat for lunch.
I couldn’t find a video of a watermelon being frozen and dropped from a building, but I did find a video of pennies being chilled in liquid nitrogen and shattered with a hammer. Enjoy!