@museumofscience: What happens when rubber meets extreme cold? ❄️ Museum Educator Jeannine drops a flexible rubber tube into liquid nitrogen at -320°F. As the rubber loses heat, the liquid nitrogen boils around it until both reach the same temperature. Then the change becomes clear. The once flexible rubber turns rigid and brittle, snapping instead of bending. That’s because rubber is made of long molecular chains that normally move freely, giving it elasticity. In extreme cold, those movements freeze in place, locking the material into a stiff, glass-like state. #Chemistry #ScienceExperiment #Freezing #ScienceExplained