I was just re-watching the Superman: The Animated Series episode Speed Demons, the first appearance of the animated Flash, ahead of posting a review of it. What caught my attention was a scene where the heroes become encased in a block of ice when the Weather Wizard lowers the temperature around them. I’d also been playing the Mister Freeze level on the Batman Lego game (another review I’m planning). Both use the standard comicbook/cartoon trick – an instantly forming block of ice holds the heroes immobile, it is visually spectacular, and generally only gives the heroes a bad case of chills.
The situation is so badly unscientific its almost impossible to consider seriously, but the question that did occur to me was how much ice can you make from just the water vapour in the air. If you did have a cryogenic gun that froze the air around the Flash, how much ice could you actually create?
The actual answer is surprisingly simple. A ball park figure is that air at a temperature of 15-20K can hold about 15 grams of ice per cubic meter of air. Ice floats because it is only about 90% of the density of normal water. This means that your average ice cube (sides of about 2cm) has a mass of 7 grams. So that cubic meter of 15-20K air contains as much water a two ice cubes. Not even enough for a good cocktail.
Those ice makers you see at the 7-11 and elsewhere are actually connected to a water tap, they just wouldn’t be able to make enough ice otherwise. And neither can our supervillains. To trap the Flash in a 2 cubic meter block of ice – just enough to hold a man – he would need to condense the water vapour out of almost 300 cubic meters of air. That’s larger than the volume of the Hindenberg Zeppelin!
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One of the things I liked about the live action Flash show was the portrayal of Captain Cold. His “freeze gun” basically froze the water in one’s body rather than trapping them in ice like this. It was actually a bit disturbing to watch.