Whoopsie.

You've had two posts from the lady of the house in a matter of hours, so I figure it must be time for a manly post.

Around 2 pm on Friday, I was in the lab and said to my RA, "Uh-oh. I think I stuck a can of soda
in my office freezer to cool it down on Wednesday..." If you remember high school Chemistry or Physics, you remember that pressure and volume are related to temperature. You probably also remember that a lower temperature means a lower volume and lower pressure. Of course, this is not the case with water. Water expands when it freezes and increases the pressure inside the containing vessel.

Oh, yes, and if the pressure becomes too much for the vessel (i.e. soda can), it goes BOOM. In this case it went BOOM inside my office fridge/freezer. Luckily most of the pieces are still in the freezer, still frozen, so cleanup won't be too tough when I finally come back to clean it up on Saturday. I can't do it today because I am still too amused by having done this. Again.

Yep, this is the SECOND time I've blown up a soda can with this fridge. The first time was in graduate school. That time the can was sitting in the door rack over the weekend, and the temp was way too low. When I came in on the following Monday, the door to the fridge was ajar, the busted can was still on the door, and all the soda had melted into the carpet tiles on the floor. Yeah, it blew with enough force to open the fridge door.

These are pictures of the current 'event'. My only regret is that I didn't get to witness the moment of rupture. I really wonder what the sound is. I think I'm going to work on a way to set up our webcam and a light in our deep freeze and get my laptop to take periodic pictures to try to capture the moment, or at least make a cool video of the can warping and blowing as it freezes. I'll have to contain it in a plexiglass box or else I'll have an angry wife on my hands and another major cleaning project. It shouldn't be too hard to build, and then I can tell people I have experience with constructing an explosives containment vessel. :)