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"A bucket of light..."


Mr.TG

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I know a chemist who said it was a standard gag when finished with Liquid nitrogen was to throw it accross the floor at some on. They'd brick it but (only if you judged it right I assume) it would evapourate well before it got near them.

I really do hope that the younger members of the forum are NOT taking notes on any of these wild suggestions wrt LN....! Or at least if they are, they're marking those notes of what NOT to do!!

Jeez, it's bad enough trying to educate wannabees about the perils of CO2 dry ice without having students rush out to the chem labs to see if they can swipe some nitrogen to throw about the classroom, "just to see if....."

 

Don't wanna sound like a kiljoy, guys, but come on ......!

:stagecrew:

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I know a chemist who said it was a standard gag when finished with Liquid nitrogen was to throw it accross the floor at some on. .

 

Hopefully the emphasis is on the "was" rather than "is".....

 

A lab technician died - suffocated and frozen - a few years ago following a liquid nitrogen spill in a research lab in Edinburgh. OK, it involved much larger quantities than we are talking about, but there are lessons to be learned from every such incident...

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Used to be fun when we had liquid nitrogen delivered to the lab by road tanker every week!!! People would see the tanker driver emerging from the cloud of low fog!!!! low being 6ft and rolling while the transfer hose cooled down to -175C.

 

In a ten metre cube - a stage- with ventilation - a proscenium arch- a deilberate spill of say ten litres of liquid nitrogen will be a low hazard way of achieving the desired result

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UV pigment dissolved in someat, guessing water will be too thin, wallpaper paste springs to mind something with some gloop. Flints carry UV dry pigment.

 

UV source internal to bucket 4 0r 6" UV tube or some UV LEDs, need the UV to very focused to the gloop.

 

Or GID pigment freshly charged off blacklight source if audience eyes are pre accustomed to dark scene beforehand.

Do this mean it was a good idea?

:stagecrew:

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In fact there's a trick you can do that involves liquid nitrogen, a surgical glove, a hot-dog sausage and a hammer....

 

Off topic, but Penn and Teller did something similar in "The Unpleasant World of...", aired in 1997 or so on Channel 4 (still have it on tape!), where they gathered some schoolkids round, to teach them about liquid nitrogen.

 

The froze some squeezy cheese, and then produced a mouse that would eat it. But they accidentally 'dropped' the mouse in the nitrogen, and then when Teller went to retrieve it, Penn forced his hand in, before smashing it with a hammer...

 

And on topic, if there is some appropriate set piece that you can hide a lamp in, your character could place the bucket upside-down over it (as you would if building a sandcastle), then when he removes it, there is a column of light...

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The froze some squeezy cheese, and then produced a mouse that would eat it. But they accidentally 'dropped' the mouse in the nitrogen, and then when Teller went to retrieve it, Penn forced his hand in, before smashing it with a hammer...

 

Technically I think that would be GBH over here, except that in the Penn and Teller case it appears to have been a magic illusion somehow.

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They didn't hide the 'somehow' after the initial audience reaction - Penn looked at them disdainfully and showed the plaster hand (or its remains).

 

Teller had picked it up moments before and held it just inside his sleeve, his real hand safe behind it.

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One way that I've achieved similar effects in the past has been using ultrasonic water foggers, such as this or this (if you need even more mist!).

 

In terms of creating a pourable, illuminated fog, these work really well, positioned in a bucket/bowl of water. The only downside is the need for a power cable going to the container, but it might be possible to work around this (possibly by making up a battery pack to replace the AC adaptor).

 

Just a thought anyway.

 

Alex.

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A lab technician died - suffocated and frozen - a few years ago following a liquid nitrogen spill in a research lab in Edinburgh. OK, it involved much larger quantities than we are talking about, but there are lessons to be learned from every such incident...

 

To further ram the point home, a truck driver died when he entered the back of his nitrogen cooled truck before it finished venting and yes, believe it or not this style of mobile cooling is still in use, but with a single alarmed tensa barrier accross whilst it vents, so that's okay then.

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I know a chemist who said it was a standard gag when finished with Liquid nitrogen was to throw it accross the floor at some on. .

 

Hopefully the emphasis is on the "was" rather than "is".....

 

A lab technician died - suffocated and frozen - a few years ago following a liquid nitrogen spill in a research lab in Edinburgh. OK, it involved much larger quantities than we are talking about, but there are lessons to be learned from every such incident...

 

its still quite common to do this, the amount of liquid nitrogen remaining after doing demonstrations of that sort is rather minimal (usually coffee flask sized) the distance isn't really a problem, as long as its not being poured from 10cm above them, by throwing it at them it will all evaporate, you may get a waft of cold air (and I do mean air, its not just N2) but you wont get any liquid nitrogen on you (I've had enough thrown at me in lectures!)

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