Superglue and You, Be Careful Now

March 30, 2006 1:32 PM

How To Save a Snowflake Forever
Theodore Gray, of the too-cool for words Periodic Table Table (discussed a long, long time ago here) gives step-by-step instructions on how to preserve a snowflake in superglue forever.

And much more coolness to explore. Smelting in a Microwave, anyone? Shrinking coins with magnets and electricity?
posted by fenriq (17 comments total)

Too bad this wasn't posted a week or two earlier. There's still snow on the ground here, but we probably won't get anymore snowfalls - only rain. Still, I'll keep the superglue hnady incase there's a late storm.
posted by raedyn at 1:38 PM on March 30, 2006

SCIENCE!

Seriously, shrinking coins? Awesome.
posted by puke & cry at 1:40 PM on March 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

Oh no! I'll have to wait eight more months (or so) to try the snowflake thing.
posted by arcticwoman at 1:47 PM on March 30, 2006

Sorry about the timing of the snowflake, I haven't seen snow since November but we've seen plenty of rain.
posted by fenriq at 1:51 PM on March 30, 2006

spoiled Californinans

/mildly jealous muttering
posted by raedyn at 2:20 PM on March 30, 2006

Microwave smelting is shit hot.
posted by MetaMonkey at 2:53 PM on March 30, 2006

The shrinking coins thing is way cool. Somewhere I've got a soda can that's been shocked into an hourglass shape using the same idea. (He didn't have enough caps to hold the power needed to shrink a coin, so he was using cans for the demo.) It's quite noisy, too.
posted by jlkr at 2:55 PM on March 30, 2006

Neat post, fenriq - the link from the last link has a more in-depth explanation of the shrunken coin phenomenon and some other stuff (although the frames seem a little broken).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 2:56 PM on March 30, 2006

How To Save a Snowflake Forever

Information that would have been much more useful to me last week!
posted by Roger Dodger at 3:15 PM on March 30, 2006

I have a new hero.
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:26 PM on March 30, 2006

I love, love, love theodore gray. Stephen Wolfram I can take or leave. If you havent checked out hte periodic table table lately, take another look, he keeps adding and adding, and if you like the popsci articles, he has a number of similar at home science features on the table that arent published anywhere else.
posted by oxonium at 4:12 PM on March 30, 2006

Way cool! Has anyone found a photo of an aluminum can that has been subjected to the magnetic field and "hourglassed?"
posted by mzurer at 5:21 PM on March 30, 2006

This is a great site. I've tried several times to save a snowflake, by using spay adhesive on a cold microscope slide. It never worked. I was so disappointed.

Also as a science teacher I am always looking for something cool to do in lab and I really like the metal smelting.

Thanks for posting.
posted by redhead at 6:53 PM on March 30, 2006

Shrunken can pix here. (it's livejournal, sorry. My webhost is being cranky and not letting me upload, and it's well after business hours so I can't grumble at them until later.)
posted by jlkr at 7:16 PM on March 30, 2006

Ah, I recall the microwave smelting from so long ago, but I'd lost the link and forgotten about it! Thanks for brushing away some of the cobwebs in my head!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:25 AM on March 31, 2006

jlkr, thanks for the pix! Is that you?
posted by mzurer at 6:24 AM on March 31, 2006

No, that's one of the Mads I know. It's his project. He had some coins as well, but didn't have the capacitors to do those on site (he was doing these in the middle of nowhere, which is the safest place to get a half dozen (or more) Mads together).
posted by jlkr at 10:03 AM on March 31, 2006