Frozen lake makes valiant stand against piece of red-hot steel
A YouTube science experiment pits hot metal against winter and nature itself. And the winner is...
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The YouTube sensations behind the Hydraulic Press Channel spend their time crushing everything from diamonds to hydraulic presses themselves (meta, right?). To blow off, and create, a little steam, the Finnish duo tried a decidedly low-tech experiment involving about 45 pounds (20 kilograms) of red-hot steel and a frozen lake.
On the team's spin-off channel, "Beyond the Press," which features all sorts of experiments that don't involve hydraulic presses, the pair simply attempts to create a hole for ice fishing using some decidedly unconventional means.
They heat a cylinder of steel until it's near orange-white hot and then place it on the surface of the ice, which only looks to be about a foot (30 centimeters) thick. They also set up a camera underwater beneath the ice in hopes of capturing the moment it breaks through.
As the hot metal is placed on the frozen water, it quickly begins to melt through it. We see and hear H2O quickly transitioning from solid to liquid to gas form as it's instantly heated to its boiling point. But will the heat energy stored in the metal be enough to melt its way completely through before it spends itself fighting against the intense cold of the lake?
Watch the whole thing above to find out, and probably don't try this one at home.
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