# Could you really freeze a person's arm and shatter it with a hammer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367 "2020-04-08T19:08:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/1 "2020-04-08T19:08:27Z")
Lest some of you don’t recognize the reference and think I’m some kind of a freak, the question is about a scene in the movie _Snowpiercer_. I saw it a couple of years ago when it was on tv and I tuned in just as some dude’s arm was thrust through a hole in a train that’s speeding through (I’m assuming?) subarctic temperatures. They then bring his frozen arm back inside and hit it with a sledgehammer. I turned the channel after that and tried to stop thinking about it. Now they’ve made a tv series and it seems I can’t go an hour without seeing the commercial, featuring a woman getting the “cold shoulder”😛 Would that really work? I don’t know why, but it disturbs the hell out of me; much more than any blood and guts stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/2 "2020-04-08T19:18:27Z")
Get cold enough for long enough, sure. Your example doesn’t sound sufficent, though. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/3 "2020-04-08T19:21:29Z")
On the other (non-shattered) hand, [TV Tropes disagrees](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiterallyShatteredLives). ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/4 "2020-04-08T19:22:04Z")
Here’s what Cecil has to say about it: > **[Could you be frozen solid, then broken into a million pieces?](https://www.straightdope.com/21344014/could-you-be-frozen-solid-then-broken-into-a-million-pieces)** Short answer, no, it wouldn’t work that way. First of all, the limb would only freeze on the surface. The inside would remain thawed. > [@Cecil Adams](#): > > Pouring liquid nitrogen over the limbs created frost on the skin, but the internal temperature hardly budged. Dunking the limbs into liquid nitrogen for 40 seconds froze the skin solid, but the internal temperature only dropped a few degrees, and everything thawed in less than ten minutes. Second, the limb wouldn’t shatter. > [@Cecil Adams](#): > > Judging from the above, I’m guessing fibrous tissue would prevent a body from simply shattering no matter what happened. You could kill the limb with a severe case of frostbite, but even if you left the dude completely outside until the body froze solid, he’s still not going to shatter. ---
**Author:** ![DebbieShen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/debbieshen/32/6231_2.png) [@DebbieShen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DebbieShen)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/5 "2020-04-08T19:22:51Z")
Thanks Alot! ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/6 "2020-04-08T19:33:23Z")
How about another example? In the Netflix animated series Love, Death, and Robots, an astronaut tears off the sleeve of her suit to intentionally freeze her arm and expose it to vacuum so she can break it off. Whattabout that? Plausible? And I also gotta say, if you haven’t watched it please do. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/7 "2020-04-08T19:43:11Z")
There was a similar scene in the original “V” sci-fi series. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/8 "2020-04-08T20:06:42Z")
Interesting. Somehow it’s comforting to know it’s strictly Hollywood magic; kind of takes the ick factor out of it for me. I definitely didn’t know it had been done in other stories / movies. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/9 "2020-04-08T20:21:31Z")
Season 1, Episode 23 of the X-Files (titled “Roland”) featured this trope, where a guy was murdered by having his head shoved in a vat of liquid nitrogen, then he’s left to shatter on the lab floor. Here’s a still of the guy getting shoved in the vat. [![](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQdzQhxYYJ4/V503pXsYQmI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FrrnaoqDM3gmC_NpjykWZunJWbcM2QuQwCLcB/s1600/nitro650.jpg) ](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQdzQhxYYJ4/V503pXsYQmI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FrrnaoqDM3gmC_NpjykWZunJWbcM2QuQwCLcB/s1600/nitro650.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/10 "2020-04-09T00:07:16Z")
I’d expect that before the arm got frozen enough to shatter, the person would already be dead. Blood is going to keep the whole body at close to the same temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Sean\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/11 "2020-04-09T04:09:07Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6giz8Kjf3gk/hqdefault.jpg "Liquid Nitrogen Frozen Turkey Drop (BYU)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6giz8Kjf3gk) I don’t know how long this turkey was frozen, but it didn’t shatter completely. On an episode of “Bones” the turkey just bounced. And in my own experiments with liquid nitrogen on overtime at work, I’ve never seen anything shatter yet. * * * “Stay the blazes home” - Stephen McNeil, Premier of Nova Scotia ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/12 "2020-04-09T11:41:06Z")
Seems to me substances that shatter, e.g. glass and ice, have nothing to hold them together but a crystal lattice. While a fully frozen limb may have a superficial resemblance, being hard and solid, it has quite a bit more to hold it together — bone, muscle, tendons, etc. It may feel like ice, but it’s not built like ice. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/13 "2020-04-09T13:49:24Z")
Grapes will kind of shatter if frozen in liquid nitrogen. Not into a million pieces, but into large chunks. Might differ with time spent in the liquid though. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/14 "2020-04-09T14:15:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d expect that before the arm got frozen enough to shatter, the person would already be dead. Blood is going to keep the whole body at close to the same temperature. That’s the first problem. If you’re going to freeze the arm and not kill the person, you’re going to have to stop the blood flow, which means the arm is already dead and pretty close to being detached already. Maybe you could put a really strong tourniquet on, wrap the person in heating pads, and put their arm in liquid N2 for an hour or four and get the arm frozen and the person alive, but with that level of effort, why not just saw the thing off after the tourniquet is on? (freezing the amputated limb afterwards is optionall) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/15 "2020-04-09T14:28:48Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Seems to me substances that shatter, e.g. glass and ice, have nothing to hold them together but a crystal lattice. While a fully frozen limb may have a superficial resemblance, being hard and solid, it has quite a bit more to hold it together — bone, muscle, tendons, etc. It may feel like ice, but it’s not built like ice. Yes, it’s a matter of structure. IIRC, one of the traditional examples of shattering using liquid nitrogen is with a rubber ball. But not just any rubber ball, it has to be the kind made of small pieces of rubber (plastic) compressed into a mold. So it doesn’t shatter like ice. And ice isn’t all that shatterable either, a block of ice the size of a man’s arm isn’t going to turn into smithereens from a single hammer blow. OTOH, hit an unfrozen piece of tempered glass just right with just a tap and it will shatter into bits. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/16 "2020-04-09T14:40:47Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Lest some of you don’t recognize the reference and think I’m some kind of a freak, the question is about a scene in the movie _Snowpiercer_. I saw it a couple of years ago when it was on tv and I tuned in just as some dude’s arm was thrust through a hole in a train that’s speeding through (I’m assuming?) subarctic temperatures. They then bring his frozen arm back inside and hit it with a sledgehammer. I turned the channel after that and tried to stop thinking about it. All I could think about while reading this was wonder whether one of the sponsors for that show was Arm & Hammer. This would be a good one for mythbusters. Get a hold of a cadaver and soak it overnight in liquid nitrogen, then have at it with sledgehammer. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/17 "2020-04-09T14:46:27Z")
Anything, regardless of composition, will shatter if you hit it hard enough with the right hammer. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/18 "2020-04-09T14:55:08Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Season 1, Episode 23 of the X-Files (titled “Roland”) featured this trope, where a guy was murdered by having his head shoved in a vat of liquid nitrogen, then he’s left to shatter on the lab floor. > > Here’s a still of the guy getting shoved in the vat. > [https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQdzQhxYYJ4/V503pXsYQmI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FrrnaoqDM3gmC\_NpjykWZunJWbcM2QuQwCLcB/s1600/nitro650.jpg](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQdzQhxYYJ4/V503pXsYQmI/AAAAAAAAAfc/FrrnaoqDM3gmC_NpjykWZunJWbcM2QuQwCLcB/s1600/nitro650.jpg) I think that was the first time I was exposed to that trope. I still remember the outline of the corpse on the floor: ending in a jagged line, with some smaller circles, dots and crosses emanating from that. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/19 "2020-04-09T14:59:08Z")
Does ice get more brittle as the temperature decreases? That’s really the question here, I think. If not, then a cadaver frozen with some cryogenic method won’t be any more brittle than one frozen in a regular freezer. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367/20 "2020-04-09T15:00:24Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Lest some of you don’t recognize the reference and think I’m some kind of a freak, the question is about a scene in the movie _Snowpiercer_. I saw it a couple of years ago when it was on tv and I tuned in just as some dude’s arm was thrust through a hole in a train that’s speeding through (I’m assuming?) subarctic temperatures. They then bring his frozen arm back inside and hit it with a sledgehammer. I turned the channel after that and tried to stop thinking about it. > > Now they’ve made a tv series and it seems I can’t go an hour without seeing the commercial, featuring a woman getting the “cold shoulder”😛 > > Would that really work? I don’t know why, but it disturbs the hell out of me; much more than any blood and guts stuff. why would you want to?:eek: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-really-freeze-a-persons-arm-and-shatter-it-with-a-hammer/851367.md?page=2)