My body temperature dropped 2 degrees just writing this. Let’s jump in …
The Daily Rabbit Hole: Iceberg Theory
“The test of any story is how very good the stuff that you, not your editors, omit.” - Hemingway
It will never not be hilarious that Vanilla Ice’s name in real life is Robert Van Winkle. The only thing that could possibly top this fact is that the song “Ice Ice Baby1” was written about his experience growing up in South Florida - a place truly known for being “too cold, too cold.” Well okay maybe another thing might top that. This blue screen-laden music video for the song that has been remastered in 4k is either a delight or a horror show depending on your vantage point.
Pretty sure the background of this particular shot is just a freeze frame from a different part of the video by the way. Production value also got cooked.
The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: The age old office temperature setting debate
“Above 27°C (80.6F) we’re (humans) not so good at mathematics”
0 degrees
Scientists began the pursuit of reaching/creating absolute zero (-459.67 Fahrenheit) in the 1700s. It’s been a long journey into the cold abyss and the biggest discovery along the way is that they will never reach their destination. Reaching absolute zero is impossible. This is because in order to reach absolute zero, you would have to do an infinite amount of work to reduce heat. Since we can’t do an infinite amount of work, we are currently stuck reaching 38 trillionths of a degree above 0 Kelvin.
This is where things get weird. Helium at these temperatures has been known to turn back into a liquid (technically a “superfluid”) and flow up and out of containers on its own, other times it remains perfectly still and yet - get this - spins at high speeds simultaneously, and further still it might even consolidate into one “super atom.” The last one is considered the most puzzling to physicists but I’m still stuck on it being completely still and spinning at the same time.
As if Helium turning into a super atom wasn’t enough, light - yes, light - becomes a liquid that you can pour when you reach these temperatures. I’m not even sure how you observe this (and trust me I’ve gone far on this particular deep dive and I still don’t fully understand it but you can read about it here). While technically it’s a “Bose-Einstein condensate” and not a liquid, it behaves like one which makes it even more bizarre.
With the way the building blocks of the universe react to cold, I have to say it makes more sense why the most common office dispute is over the temperature setting. Next time I’m a little too cold I will loudly proclaim that I don’t want our collective atoms to turn into one super atom and win the debate.
I can’t believe I’m typing this, because it seems unfathomable, but this songg is 1/3 of a century old this year.