If I take bath with liquid nitrogen, am I going to catch cold? SERIOUS ANSWERS, please...?

Question

Or hypothermia? Or frostbite? Or else?

And, no I'm not that mad to do that, I'm just curious for such long time here....

Answer 1

Seriously, if you dove into liquid nitrogen, your blood would freeze. Remember the scene from "Day After Tomorrow" where the Scots stepped out of their choppers after their fuel lines froze and instantly turned to popsicles? Think of that. Or, think of the Terminator 2 movie when the T-1000 was drenched with the stuff. That would happen to you too...your limbs would break off, if anyone tried to move them.

There is, however, no harm in quickly dipping a finger into it, because you have sufficient body heat to evaporate the nitrogen before it actually touches your skin, for that very brief period.

Answer 2

It is a cryogenic fluid which is potentially capable of causing instant frostbite on contact with living tissue
Rapid release of nitrogen gas into an enclosed space can displace oxygen, and therefore represents an asphyxiation hazard. This may happen with few warning symptoms, since the human carotid body is a relatively slow and poor low-oxygen (hypoxia) sensing system.[6] An example occurred shortly before the launch of the first Space Shuttle mission in 1981, when two technicians lost consciousness and died after they walked into a space located in the Shuttle's Mobile Launch Platform that was pressurized with pure nitrogen as a precaution against fire. The technicians would have been able to exit the room if they had experienced early symptoms from nitrogen-breathing.

Nitrogen also dissolves in the bloodstream and body fats, and rapid decompression (particularly in the case of divers ascending too quickly, or astronauts decompressing too quickly from cabin pressure to spacesuit pressure) can lead to a potentially fatal condition called decompression sickness (formerly known as caisson sickness or more commonly, the "bends"), when nitrogen bubbles form in the bloodstream, nerves, joints, and other sensitive or vital areas.

Direct skin contact with liquid nitrogen causes severe frostbite (cryogenic burns) within moments to seconds, though not instantly on contact, depending on form of liquid nitrogen (liquid vs. mist) and surface area of the nitrogen-soaked material (soaked clothing or cotton causing more rapid damage than a spill of direct liquid to skin, which for a few seconds is protected by the Leidenfrost effect).

Answer 3

Understanding physics frequently involves changing one of the variables and re-evaluating the situation.

What you are describing is synomonous with a blacksmith plunging a white hot piece of iron into a bucket full of water. The iron is so hot, it actually forms a protective coat of superheated steam around itself. In short, the liquid never comes into contact with the solid object. The iron will cool eventually to a point where the barrier breaks down. At this point it is in contact with the water and rapidly cools.

This phenomenon explains a popular science stunt. The "scientist" takes a drink of water and then a small sip of liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen then reacts with the moisture in the actor's mouth as though it were liquid iron. The "superheated nitrogen steam" barrier gives the stuntman time enough to spit the remaining liquid nitrogen out of his mouth in a great cloud. It's quite entertaining on cable TV...

It seems reasonable if you wet yourself down first, stepping into the tub might be possible, but the steam barrier only lasts seconds, so by the time you immerced yourself, you will have already begun to freeze. If you were the size of a large insect, you would freeze so fast the water inside your body cells could not form crystals large enough to rupture them. Therefore, you could then be retrieved and would thaw out and be essentially undamaged. Unfortunatly your own body mass would not freeze fast enough to prevent massive tissue damage. You would probably thaw out and look like you had been boiled alive.

Perhaps someday some sort of electromagnetic heat sponge will be developed which will absorb heat so fast objects the size of elephants could be frozen alive. However the generation of so much heat so quickly would probably produce an acoustic shock wave and sound something like thunder. A rabbit would probably just produce a loud bang. I suppose it would all be something like lightening.

Thawing out frozen objects this size instantaneously would work in reverse. A great deal of energy would be turned into heat and injected into the frozen object. This would be extremely difficult to do because only the object itself would need to be heated. Also the object would need to thaw rapidly enough so that frozen tissue did not cause frostbite in unfrozen tissue. Finally, rapidly heating the air around the object would result in an explosion. Perhaps this would have to be done in a vacuum chamber. Atmospheric pressure is just 14 pounds. Contrary to science fiction, suddenly exposing a person to a total vacuum does not cause them to explode.

Answer 4

Hypothermia.. in very short order.

Don't worry about catching cold. No time for that to happen if you jump into a liquid nitrogen bath.

Answer 5

Immediate frostbite would ensue, followed rapidly by hypothermia and death. Nitrogen boils at -320° F, meaning that liquid nitrogen must be below that temperature.

Answer 6

You ask for serious answers, yet you don't ask a serious question. Is that really fair? But, seriously, all of the above, "or else" being death, OK, technically, you might be dead before your core temperature was low enough to be called "hypothermia" the rapid boiling of the LN2 will displace the air you need to breath so you may suffocate before the cold kills you, but it will be a close call, could be either one.

Answer 7

Liquid nitrogen expands to 70 times its volume when exposed to atmosphere. Thus, if you are going to take bath in liquid nitrogen in an enclosed space, the gaseous nitrogen produced will drive out all air from the space and thus you run the risk of suffocating and dying. (refer to the Michael Crichton's latest novel NEXT, where a similar incident happens).
in case you are going to immerse yourself in a bath of liuid nitrogen, you blood vessels, blood, its flow, everything is going to freeze and you will experience a probably painfull death. So dont risk it.

Answer 8

Serious answers? Are you serious? LN boils at
-195C (-319 degrees F). After a few minutes they would be able to take your frozen body out with a crane and drop you a couple stories and watch you shatter like a glass tinker-bell. Hmmm, that might be interesting. Let me know when you are going to do it, ok?

Answer 9

Although nitrogen is nontoxic and inert, it can act as a simple asphyxiant by displacing the oxygen in air to levels below that required to support life. Inhalation of nitrogen in excessive amounts can cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death. Death may result from errors in judgment, confusion, or loss of consciousness that prevents self-rescue. At low oxygen concentrations, unconsciousness and death may occur in seconds and without warning.

Answer 10

You can't catch a cold if you're dead. The cold viruses need living cells to replicate. Submerging your body in liquid nitrogen will result in nearly instantaneous death. Ergo, no cold.