There’s an art form that is tragically underappreciated and in need of preservation. Snowmen, and snow-women and animals. We build them, we photograph them (maybe) but are resigned to their eventual disappearance. Shouldn’t there be some way of keeping and displaying some of the more remarkable examples of this often beautiful and uplifting folk-art? Of course! A snowman museum!
But, you ask, isn’t there more to it than just keeping the temperature in the museum below freezing? You know how ice cubes shrink over time sitting in your freezer. It’s a process called - well I forget what it’s called, but it’s something about water that makes it transmogrify from a solid to a gas without going through a liquid phase. Science at its most unfair!
So can one of you physics types address this problem and come up with a way of keeping frozen water crystals from dissipating on a long-term basis? Preferably without having to keep the room at absolute zero. We want visitors to be able to walk around and really appreciate the artistry. Maybe there’s a way to stablilize the air so it doesn’t suck up the snow molecules.
Hey, I did the hard part here, now someone else can iron out the deets. Imagine seeing snow angels from the Middle Ages! Yes, it’s too late for that, but wouldn’t people a hundred years from now marvel at say a snow Dolly Parton!
Right, you know the word, thanks for nothing Poindexter.
Moderating:
Someone offering help does not merit a personal attack. Knock it off.
It didn’t come off that way. Thanks for clarifying, but don’t offer further criticism of moderation in this thread.
Call Madame Tusauds; they know something about making lifelike models
In case you are wondering what inspired this notion, well wonder no more.
Driving home over Bexley Rd. in Roslindale MA, I encountered this - “creation” - and just had to stop and snap a photograph. It is a big heap of snow, plowed off the street, and turned into something both fearsome and beautiful. If you want to see it, better get out soon because we’re expecting rain and rising temperatures tomorrow.
I appreciate the notion of making a casting and putting that on display - if such a thing is possible - but I fear it would be a poor substitute for the real thing. Give it a name if you like.
A fairly straightforward way to at least significantly slow down the sublimation of snow would be a room with:
- A air temperature which is consistently kept at or slightly below 0 F
- A high relative humidity (ideally close to 100%; in other words, the dew point of the air in your room should be at or near the air temperature)
- Reasonably still air
- No direct sunlight, at a minimum; LED lighting (as opposed to incandescent lighting) would be good, and relatively dim/low lighting (with no light fixtures directly illuminating your snowmen) may also help a bit.
Well that’s a good start.
I would think having high humidity in a room that cold world lead to frost forming on things, so instead of shrinking the snow-things would get crusted over. Right or wrong?
Zero fahrenheit is pretty cold, but we could pass out earmuffs that would also double as descriptive audio providers with historical facts for educational purpose.
Wrong (probably, I think). Frost could form on surfaces, but really only if the relative humidity gets to 100% (i.e., the air is saturated with water, and the dew point reaches 100%). Frost is really just dew, at a lower temperature. When you get frost on things in your freezer, it’s because you keep opening the freezer door (and the door isn’t airtight), and warmer, damper air keeps entering.
The reason you want high relative humidity in this thought experiment is that, if the air is nearly saturated with water, it slows down sublimation, since there’s no place for more water vapor to go.
Colder air can hold less water than warmer air; air that’s a few degrees below zero F can hold very little water vapor, and “100% relative humidity” at that temperature is still very dry in the absolute. (BTW, this is why indoor air in the wintertime in cold climates is so dry, unless you have a humidifier running; if you bring in outside air that’s at 0F, and heat it up, you’ll get warm, but very dry, air.)
Climate control would be vital for your imaginary snowman museum, and you would probably want your snowmen to be in sealed, climate-controlled cases, to maintain that perfect temperature and humidity, and keep your visitors’ body warmth and exhaled water vapor from messing things up.
Only imaginary until we whomp up a Kickstarter.
Who wants to be in on the ground floor? Yes, for starters there should be a “proof of concept”. I will put a snowball in a deep-freezer and see what happens.