After visiting the Natural History Museum, a few of us headed over to the neighbouring Science Museum to checkout the recently-updated LaunchPad exhibit. One of the displays demonstrated the phenomenon of sublimation (see the Wikipedia article on sublimation for a more detailed background). The simple set-up allowed small pellets of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) to come into contact with water, whereby the carbon dioxied will sublime directly from solid to gaseous form, without becoming a liquid. The jets of gas spewing from the pellets caused them to skid around the surface of the water, creating mesmerising patterns.
