“And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!”

Ice is an enormously unusual substance. Just about every substance shrinks when it gets cold, but not water; it expands by 8%. Were that not so — if ice occupied less space than water — then ice would sink to the bottom of bodies of water. The bottoms of the oceans would have been blanketed with ice early in our planet’s creation, preventing life as we know it from ever evolving. Now comes news that researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have demonstrated that subjecting water to extreme, sudden pressure can cause it to a) heat above the boiling point b) freeze and c) shrink, all in a few nanoseconds. With fourteen different kinds of ice, no doubt there’s a lot about it that remains to be discovered. And don’t even ask why ice is slippery: nobody knows.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

7 replies on ““And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!””

  1. That is fascinating to read that article. I had always thought it was friction, or lack of it, causing ice to be slippery. Who knew that it was still a working hypothesis? Cool.

  2. See, this is why science is important, and everyone really should be required to take lots of physics lessons: Ice is slippery because the compression of ice creates heat and melting, so in effect, ice isn’t slippery, but water on ice is – you are floating.

  3. Ice is even stranger than your story. As ice begins to form, water contracts in volume at, I think, 4 degrees centigrade, then it expands in volume at 0 degrees.

  4. I’m amused by the fact that there was a link to distinguish “ice IX” from “Ice-nine.” But my favorite term in the article is “hyperquenched glassy water.”

  5. Last summer I had the pleasure of spending a week at Utah’s Olympic Oval, “The Fastest Ice on Earth” where my son attended a camp. It is a fascinating place, where all the world records were set during the 2002 Olympic Games. The explanation for why the ice was so fast was that the air is so humid there. But I imagine there’s a more complicated and mysterious explantion. Here’s one link about the place:
    http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660201752,00.html

  6. Ooops…of course I mean to say the air is so DRY there….Not humid. (It’s a great venue to escape Virginia’s summer humidity).

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