Molecules & Snot

In this episode of Beakman’s World, Beakman explains two things that happen quietly, all day and all night, whether you notice or not: your house creaking as its molecules expand and contract with the temperature, and the mucus in your nose working nonstop to filter every breath you take. Lester survives a dip in liquid nitrogen weather, and a viewer’s question about spooky nighttime noises turns into a full trip up the nasal passage.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why your house creaks and cracks more at night
• How molecules move differently when things heat up or cool down
• What happens to a balloon dipped in liquid nitrogen
• Why mucus is your nose’s first line of defence, not something to be embarrassed about
• How nasal hairs filter the air before it reaches your lungs
• Which prehistoric looking fish is still alive off the coast of Africa today

Invisible work, happening whether you notice it or not

Both halves of this episode are about matter doing its job somewhere you cannot see it. At night, your house is not haunted, it is just cooling down: its molecules slow down and take up less room, so wood joints shrink and creak against each other, and the same thing happens in reverse when a balloon warms back up after a dunk in liquid nitrogen. Meanwhile, every single breath you take is being filtered by a mucus factory in your nose that never clocks off, trapping dust and germs before they get any further in. Different scales, different subjects, same underlying idea: there is always more going on than what you can see.

Beakman’s demonstrations

Beakman dunks a balloon and a tomato in liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit, freezing the tomato solid enough to shatter and shrinking the balloon down as the air inside contracts, then lets it reinflate as the air warms and expands again. A model of the wood joints found in ordinary furniture lets him recreate the exact creaking and cracking sound a cooling house makes overnight. For the nose, he sends a camera on a theatrical trip up the nasal passage, complete with nasal hairs standing in as a germ filter, then runs a fan through a model nose to show dust getting trapped in mucus on the way in while clean air comes out the other side.

Try this at home

The freezer balloon test. Blow up a balloon partway, then leave it in the freezer for a few minutes with an adult keeping an eye on the time. Watch it shrink as the air inside cools and contracts, then bring it back into the warm room and watch it puff back up as the air expands again, the same idea Beakman shows with liquid nitrogen, just a lot safer.

The nighttime listening test. On a cold evening, listen for creaks and cracks from your furniture or floorboards as the house cools down. It is not spooky, it is contraction, exactly like Jenny Wallace’s question at the start of the episode.