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Caltech
A Caltech student gives two thumbs up to the annual pumpkin-smashing event. A Caltech student gives two thumbs up to the annual pumpkin-smashing event. Credit: Caltech/Mark Burleson
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Halloween Pumpkin Drop: A Tradition

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Every Halloween at midnight, Dabney House—one of Caltech's eight undergraduate student houses—stages a pumpkin drop from the top of Caltech Hall, the highest point on campus. At the event, begun in 1972 and now a Caltech tradition, students drop pumpkins frozen in liquid nitrogen from the top of Caltech Hall to see if they will give off a brief triboluminescent glow as they hit the ground and shatter.