This week at Lunch ‘n Learn, we were visited by Andrew Hanson and his team from the National Physical Laboratory. They delivered some incredible Liquid Nitrogen demos to get us into the Christmas spirit.

The NPL team brought a huge Dewar of liquid nitrogen for the experiments. Its temperature is around -196℃, so it freezes anything almost instantly. We watched a tennis ball lose its bounce, a rose shatter like glass and balloons shrink to a third of their original size and expand again after being exposed to the warmth in the room. The NPL crew then froze some yttrium barium copper oxide and placed it on a very strong, large magnet. When the YCBO is super cold, it becomes a super conductor and can float and glide over the magnet!

Lastly, a Styrofoam cup was filled with boiling water and soap, and then with liquid nitrogen. This created an overflowing mess of bubbles filled with cloudy liquid nitrogen vapour. Mr Hanson left us with the reason he does what he does: “science is the future, and it makes life better for people”. I hope our Lunch ‘n Learners can carry these wise words with them though their STEAM journeys.

This was our most popular lecture yet, and we had so much fun! Thank you to the NPL team for such exciting demonstrations. Make sure to come back next week for another exciting Lunch ‘n Learn Lecture.

Gaby da Silveira Pinheiro, STEAM Prefect and Lower Sixth Student