Bathtime Is So Much Fun!

[00:09] Oh, we do under Google rules. That was the play of super excited told us we had to
[00:22] We signed up for it in the end it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you
[00:30] Harper you know I've talked about this many a time
[00:33] And we've never looked it up, and I just think it's time that we solve this thing once and for all in fact
[00:38] It was such an interesting discussion during college that I wrote it in my book
[00:45] Land tumbling backwards by the way you can still buy it on Amazon for 99 cents if you'd like
[00:50] Get it get it on Kindle
[00:53] Or you can just tweet at the undebeatables, and I'll send you a copy. I've got I've got a couple cases in my trunk
[01:00] the
[01:01] The question is is it ever too cold to snow?
[01:06] We heard this all the time in Minnesota
[01:08] It was it was like 30 below and it wouldn't snow and like oh the reason it's not snowing is because it's too cold
[01:14] To snow, and I'm wondering if there's any scientific basis to this idea. I've been sitting on this forever. I even wrote a book
[01:22] Which contemplated this answer and never googled it so I'm gonna go to my two best friends
[01:27] I know Harper doesn't know the answer because I've already talked to him about it
[01:29] Well, but I'm thinking Jason might know I think I think Harper needs to at least constrain the question because in some sense yes
[01:36] Absolute zero nothing happens right so what you're asking about is what the constraints of you know
[01:42] And you know the earth's atmosphere. Can it get too cold to smell?
[01:48] Okay, so what do you mean absolute zero means nothing happens?
[01:51] Basically at absolute zero there is no movement like not even quantum movement like everything. Yes atoms. Don't move
[01:58] There's no there's nothing air stops moving. Yeah, like so there can't be
[02:04] Anything basically it's really yeah, yeah
[02:08] so if it's below zero
[02:10] Everything's
[02:13] Dead absolutely everything stop there is no there is no absolute zero absolute zero is so what's absolute zero?
[02:20] Then first it's your age that I'm thinking yeah, it's like negative
[02:24] What?
[02:26] Gosh, I don't even know I should know what absolute zero. It's like
[02:30] 273 negative 273 Celsius or something like that. Thank you because I was in the 500s
[02:35] Okay, that sounds all right well, so but that doesn't come up very often so you what you're saying is that
[02:41] What you're saying is that at some point?
[02:44] Point you can get something so cold that nothing will move but that doesn't happen in real life very often
[02:51] No, no, yeah, no if I mean it would never happen in life because you'd be dead
[02:57] Okay, so so weirdly I may have some insight from a book that I recently read
[03:03] Which was not on this topic, but it what so it's this book called
[03:08] Science and fiction in the house of magic, and it was just this like a biography of
[03:15] The Vonnegut brothers so Kurt Vonnegut in Annapolis his own sure
[03:20] brother
[03:22] Bernie
[03:23] That's okay with Bernie
[03:25] Not so funny Bernie was a smart guy so Bernie went and what was like a
[03:31] Straight-A student did really good in school. I
[03:34] got his PhD in chemistry went and worked for GE in the
[03:40] Early 40s or something like that this was you know the place to be basically it was called the house of magic
[03:46] It was great, but you know scientists just did whatever they were just like there's there's a bunch of unknowns go figure things out
[03:53] We're GE will figure out how to monetize it on the back end. Yeah, exactly
[03:58] Just invent stuff. Yeah, exactly
[04:00] So they just gave him this playground to go do things and it turned out that Kurt actually worked as a PR guy
[04:06] At GE at the same time that Bernie was working there no doubt his most lucrative career
[04:12] Yeah, he hated it. I'm sure he did but the money was I'm sure great right right so the book
[04:18] Which is actually quite good sort of sort of?
[04:22] Chronologically sort of like goes back and forth between Kurt and Bernie in there
[04:26] You know I'm sorry to say Burton Ernie
[04:33] Almost now. I probably will for the rest of them rubber ducky. You're the one
[04:39] So it's the time where Kurt is going from being a PR guy to becoming an independent writer like blah blah blah and then
[04:47] Bernie is working on this project at GE
[04:50] on
[04:51] cloud seeding
[04:53] which is the
[04:55] Basically they were like
[04:57] You know oftentimes you'll see clouds form and form and form and they look dark
[05:01] But not they won't rain and so what they figured out was that you need to
[05:06] Nucleate the precipitation event right and so they were trying to figure out
[05:11] Good ways to do this because then if you can can if you can do that then you can
[05:17] Control the weather but whether you could if there's a drought you could in theory
[05:22] overcome that and make the Marines fall or
[05:25] the US Army
[05:29] Predictably got involved because if you control the weather it's a big advantage super hell plate
[05:34] so
[05:35] basically GE was doing this research funded by
[05:39] DoD to figure out how to seed clouds
[05:42] To make it rain and so they were doing all these I had no idea this was happening, but this is so this is post-World War two
[05:50] up
[05:51] through the early 60s basically they were doing this experience where they just go and fly a plane and like drop dry ice into
[06:01] Clouds that look like they were about to rain and make it rain or whatever
[06:06] Or the thing that Bernie Vonnegut came up with was silver nitrate or something like that
[06:12] And so they did these experiments
[06:16] The the challenge that they encountered was that they could it's hard for them to prove that whatever they did was actually making it rain
[06:23] I see sure because it could have just started raining right exactly cuz the conditions were right there's there's no control to be had
[06:31] So the experiment that that
[06:34] Bernie's team came up with was to do this periodic sort of inflection of
[06:40] Silver nitrate so they like went to some
[06:42] mountain top in New Mexico and would just blast silver nitrate into the air for like
[06:48] a day
[06:49] And then turn it off and then like so they did it like every Wednesday
[06:57] And then there's like these like crazy storms happening all over the place
[07:02] They at one point made like a hurricane or you know in theory a hurricane like turned like 180 degrees or something like that
[07:08] like but they still couldn't prove that they were doing anything basically and so the the project eventually like petered away
[07:17] anyway, suffice it to say
[07:19] That's a from this by the way, what I am
[07:25] Gleaning is that it could probably be too cold for it to snow because
[07:30] The amount of moisture that can be held in the atmosphere
[07:34] Is
[07:36] reduced when it's cold right so in the winter it's very dry and
[07:41] so the the the less
[07:44] Moisture in a given cloud the harder. It will be to do this scene in event and
[07:50] And actually nucleate the the precipitation. So my guess is that yes, it can be too cold to
[07:56] To snow. I don't know what that temperature is, right?
[08:01] Probably not in the presence of existing clouds, right? I mean essentially
[08:06] Heat
[08:07] evaporates water turns water into vapor those create clouds and then they cool off and fall to ground, right?
[08:17] basically, yeah, so
[08:22] You get some kind they condense into a cloud race, right?
[08:25] I mean you could definitely be cold enough that the amount of evaporation is
[08:32] totally minimized, right
[08:35] To where you wouldn't get cloud. It's a complex system, right? Because you're
[08:40] Whatever clouds are overhead you now were formed someplace else, right?
[08:46] One-to-one evaporation to well, that was gonna be my question
[08:49] I mean could could it be so cold that you don't have any clouds that like they can't even form in your night sky
[08:55] I mean, I'm sure that
[08:58] you know
[09:00] The clouds in that article aren't from the evaporation of ice
[09:06] Right, right. Those are those are imported basically and then for sure when they get there. That's when they get the precipitation
[09:14] But I I think that sort of my I
[09:19] don't know it I agree Jason it becomes a difficult question to answer because
[09:24] Once the clouds are formed, I mean at some point they have to precipitate
[09:29] I mean they just
[09:31] Yeah, at some point it's got to go somewhere, right? So when it reaches a cooling point
[09:36] I mean perhaps it could just happen so fast
[09:39] I mean even then the water vapor would freeze and in essence it becomes ice
[09:45] Which would fall to the ground now the size of those droplets may be
[09:52] small
[09:54] I mean, I don't know but
[10:00] Yeah, like when said once a crystal starts like I
[10:05] Mean, I guess it stops at some point but it does. I mean, yeah
[10:10] But I mean there's lots of times that a cloud is snowing and by the time it gets to the atmosphere
[10:17] It's warmed up and it turns into sleet right or something like that. Yeah. Yeah for sure, right
[10:23] So so basically our hypothesis is that it's got to be so cold that you can't even have clouds
[10:32] Yeah, or or that it if a cloud
[10:37] Is so cold that it can't nucleate. Yeah
[10:43] I mean, I think that's a station event essence of the question, right? Is that a cloud exists already?
[10:49] Can it be too cold to convert?
[10:52] to precipitation
[10:54] And I feel like for me, I mean unless it was a really I
[10:59] Feel like the answer is probably no to that question. Okay. Yeah
[11:03] Okay, I would because I would think you would still be able to form an ice crystal and then that would nucleate
[11:09] That's my I mean, even if it just force an ice crystal and falls to the ground due to gravity, right?
[11:14] I mean, it's just right
[11:17] That's that's the question right? I mean cuz I I just
[11:20] This is something that was said all of the time in Minnesota all the time
[11:24] It happened all the time, especially when it was way below zero, which was more often than I'd like to admit
[11:29] You know, it's 15 20 30 degrees below zero and it's not snowing
[11:33] They'd be like, oh, well, it's too cold to snow and so I just thought that that was a thing
[11:37] But now when you think about it, nothing that on the ground is connected to anything up in that atmosphere, right? Mm-hmm
[11:45] I'm holding up a cloud in my
[11:49] so according to the
[11:55] National snow and ice data center
[11:58] Well, it can be too warm to snow. It cannot be too cold to snow
[12:03] Snow can occur even at incredibly low temperatures as long as there is some source of moisture in some way to lift or cool
[12:11] the air
[12:13] It is true. However that most heavy snowfalls occur when there's relatively warm air near the ground typically negative 9
[12:20] centigrade or warmer
[12:23] Since warm or warm air warmer air can hold hold more water vapor
[12:30] Okay, so they're actually
[12:32] So there actually is some truth to this statement, which is if it gets cold enough. It's less likely to snow
[12:38] It's not impossible. It's less likely to be a heavy snow. Yeah. Yeah, it's less likely to be generated there, right?
[12:44] I mean be because of the way that
[12:47] You know, I mean, I think we kind of nailed this one, right? I mean the stuff that I'm looking at is, you know
[12:54] It basically can't be too cold to snow, but it can be too dry
[12:57] Right, right. Okay. Sure. Sure. Which is and cold is connected to dry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay
[13:05] interesting now
[13:07] The one thing that I want to touch back on before we close this out because I what because I don't know anything about it
[13:13] And it's very exciting and I thought it was the thing to bring out of this
[13:17] Sub-zero remind me one more time. This it is. It is a a condition that doesn't exist on earth
[13:23] I think you're going for absolute zero
[13:26] Absolute zero, right? Sub-zero was a character in Mortal Kombat. He very much was
[13:31] And he shot like ice or something, right? Yeah, he did he did so absolute zero
[13:38] occurs at approximately
[13:41] 275 Celsius and 500 Fahrenheit
[13:46] You nailed that Jason
[13:49] Yeah, two hundred and seventy three point one five C or four fifty nine point six seven Fahrenheit
[13:55] negative
[13:56] Negative negative which is an Harper you all you also almost know that you said 500 but you were thinking Fahrenheit
[14:02] So both of you guys are super smart
[14:05] So molecules stop moving right? There's no there's I mean energy or
[14:10] Heat rather is a function of
[14:13] You know thermodynamic energy, right, so
[14:17] When there is zero heat
[14:19] That means that there is zero movement anywhere. So it's not it's not a survivable thing
[14:26] So, okay, it's like this is theoretical. Well, I was gonna ask you right like if I'm in the depths of space
[14:32] Is there an absolute zero or no because the space is moving all the time and so there's enough heat energy to keep it going
[14:39] Right. Is this talk about this is the heat death of the universe sort of thing like eventually everything will move so far apart that
[14:44] We get to sub absolute zero. Is that this?
[14:48] I'm expanding on I don't think it certainly
[14:52] Some science fiction writer wrote that book at at some point, but I don't think it's a big fear
[14:58] I think that there's enough
[15:00] brownie emotion in the
[15:03] Universe that
[15:05] Things are yeah, like we'll just keep moving. Yeah
[15:09] Keep creating heat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah
[15:12] It's not like a black hole. It's not like the the the cold spot is gonna make everything else around it colder. I
[15:19] Think the reverse would be true that the warm
[15:22] Oh, he would constantly warm the cold cuz he is the thing that moves right, right? Yeah, right
[15:28] Well, I'm just gonna say that absolute zero is a great name for
[15:35] An Avenger
[15:36] Sure, mmm sure sure probably it's the average temperature of the universe today is approximately
[15:43] 2.73 kelvins that is negative
[15:47] 454.76 Fahrenheit and that's cosmic radiation, right? That's just and that's just but that's just right above
[15:56] Absolute zero. That's right. That's correct. Oh
[15:59] Wow
[16:00] What was that? Oh and Wilson
[16:08] That's exciting Wow
[16:12] Wow
[16:13] I
[16:17] Did appreciate that fun fact. So basically the world is the universe. I'm sorry. The universe is just above
[16:24] Absolute zero we're all on the edge of like permanent when it comes to matter death. Yeah
[16:31] Space is not a hospitable place
[16:35] For no one can hear you scream
[16:37] It definitely you can't they can I hear you scream nice work gentlemen
[16:43] I
[16:45] Feel like I know more than I did before I asked the question again. This is something that's haunted me since college
[16:51] We're talking about 20 years. I
[16:53] Feel like I know finally know the answer. All you had to do was wait for
[16:58] Google to be invented and then
[17:02] Yeah, we didn't have Google back in college
[17:04] No, we did not we had we had email, but we didn't really have the internet. We sort of had the internet we we
[17:10] We have like Internet Explorer
[17:12] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we could check that scape scores. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep
[17:20] AOL discs you've got mail Wow