Upgrade to the hydrogen type.
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Yes, do that. It’s much flashier. A real gas, man. (I must stop making light of this, or I’ll get burned.)
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I maintained super-conducting NMRs for a number of years at a university chemistry department. Liquid Helium boils away so quickly you don’t ever see a liquid. The thing about Helium is that it is a very tiny molecule it is able to leak thru the tiniest holes. Holes so small even nitrogen can’t get thru. I can imagine that if your iPhone is exposed to a splash of liquid Helium it may well seep into the phone. If it’s heated up quickly it could cause damage due to expansion. It might possibly draw moisture into the body of the phone. I might consider putting it into a bag of rice to eliminate moisture but leave it with your wallet and wristwatch at the door. I’d keep it away from high strength magnetic fields.
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sigh
We obviously need another new public safety campaign.
Don’t text and pilot lighter-than-air ships, people!
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SF6 is actually pretty benign. In gas form it is almost completely inert, the only direct danger to humans is suffocation. It is used in the semiconductor industry as an etchant, but only when ionized in a plasma that allows the fluorine to react. It is an extremely strong greenhouse gas, so industrial emissions are a problem.
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Phones aren’t going to get exposed to “a splash” of liquid helium. The issue is apparently that if you are in a room with a “high” concentration of helium gas such as in a MRI lab when a magnet quenches, the gas can diffuse into hermetically sealed MEMS devices, including the MEMS resonator that provides the system clock. This adds damping to the resonator and can make it no longer oscillate. No clock == no working phone.
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I read that in my mind in an Alvin & the Chipmunks voice…
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I find it hard to believe that this would be a problem specific to iPhones.
As someone beat me to it above…I’ll remember not to take it with me the next time I’m in my deep sea submersible.
Just don’t ride around in helium-powered ships generally.
A zeppelin ride from New York to London might seem like the height of luxury but you’re basically just riding around in a giant bomb.
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Pedant man sez:
Helium is inert. It is quite literally less likely be part of an explosive reaction than water. Airships are not POWERED by helium. they have conventional engines using conventional fuels.
The big safety problem with helium filled rigid airships is that in heavy winds they tend to snap in half or simply lose control. (Of course zombies are a problem for all aircraft, not just lighter than air ones.
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Thanks for the explanation. I was trying to figure out how an inert gas could affect electronics (…higher heat transfer?) and hadn’t even considered tiny vibrating things.
Zank yu. I waz guing to zay zat.
Well, at zome off it. I wut not no abut zombiez, off curse.
Zinzerely,
Count Zeppelin
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Feel free to be pedantic, I certainly always do. My post was just a reference to an episode of Archer where Archer repeatedly insists that the helium-filled zeppelin might explode, despite having the fact that helium is inert explained to him, repeatedly.
Lana: And what part of this are you not getting exactly?
Archer: Well obviously, the core concept.
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In the spirit of pedantry an airship could be helium powered; though fusion reactors that not only actually produce useful amounts of energy but are light enough for aviation use seem deeply unlikely to hit the shelves anytime soon.
There are definitely substances that will react explosively with water. Chlorine trifluoride is an excellent example (though that one can set asbestos on fire).
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See that little dot, way up in the sky? That was the joke soaring WAY WAY above my head.
A giant bomb…with it’s own SMOKING LOUNGE.
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This offhand, beautiful and yet incredibly obscure explanation is why the BoingBoing comment section is my favorite comment section anywhere.
When an MRI or other machine with lots of helium does this “quench” thing, does it dump enough helium in the room to be fatal; not by toxicity, but by displacing the air that we breath?
Asking for wife who has an MRI soon.
