

What happens to water if it’s not allowed to expand when frozen? - andreyf
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/04/27/what-happens-to-water-if-its-not-allowed-to-expand-when-frozen/

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Retric
Water is not the only substance that expands when frozen.

The following elements expand when frozen: Gallium, Germanium and Plutonium.

There is also a wide range of molecules that expand when frozen. What's really
less well known about water is it expands right before it freezes (4C - 0C)
which significantly inhibits lakes from freezing in the winter by creating a
large boundary layer.

~~~
adw
The converse, negative thermal expansion ceramics like zirconium tungstate,
are fascinating materials; they shrink when you heat them.

It's all to do with low-frequency vibrational modes, but if I started talking
about mode Gruneisen parameters I'd start boring the arse off all of you and,
what's worse, giving myself flashbacks...

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hristov
Wow I did not know there were actually different types of ice. There is even
an ice IX which is unfortunately (well, actually, fortunately) not nearly as
cool and destructive as the ice-9 imagined by Kurt Vonnegut.

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adw
As one of a handful of mineralogists on Hacker News (and I suspect that
Timetric's pretty much cornered _that_ market), I'm delighted to see phase
diagrams on here!

This stuff is utterly fascinating. OK, I'm biased, I did my doctoral thesis on
diffusion networks in silica glass, but things like the ortho/clinopyroxene or
feldspar systems - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldspar> \- are just really
beautiful.

(I mean, look at it! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albite_-
_Crete_(Kriti)_Isl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albite_-
_Crete_\(Kriti\)_Island,_Greece.jpg). Not as spectacular as APoD, OK, but I
don't regret my time in science.)

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lmkg
The difference between the types of ice is similar to the difference between
graphite and diamond: same atoms, different arrangement and different crystal
structures that are thermodynamically favored at different pressures.

Tangentially related: I've heard that if you want to freeze someone with
cryogenics, you need to drop the temperature very quickly to far below normal
freezing, so that you get a different type of ice crystal. I'm not entirely
sure what the difference is (I'm not even sure this is 100% true), but I
suspect whatever harm you're avoiding is related to why frozen food doesn't
taste as good. If a chemist, biologist, or cryogenist could correct me, I'd
love to hear the details.

~~~
DrSprout
Alton Brown's explanation on Good Eats of how to get good frozen strawberries
effectively said that if you freeze them slowly, you get jagged ice crystals
which slice membranes and cause them to turn to mush when you defrost. If you
do it quickly it creates smaller, smoother crystals that leave the structure
intact.

~~~
noilly
Yes- larger crystals + expansion --> puncture and break cell walls --> not
good when you're defrosted. Tangentially, this is why ice cream cooled with
liquid nitrogen is so smooth

~~~
vl
ok, where can I try ice cream cooled with liquid nitrogen?

~~~
Robin_Message
The Fat Duck in Bray, run by Heston Blumenthal --
<http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/>

Heston is awesome. We just did a series on TV where we made, amongst other
things, edible wallpaper as the desert course, so all these celebs were
licking the walls...

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vinhboy
Great video, but maybe they should have been wearing lab coats. They look like
wallstreet CEOs in those suits.

~~~
MartinCron
At my office, we're doing "fancy Friday", which is like casual Friday, but,
you know, fancy. I've started taking it pretty seriously.

People have noted that when I wear a nice suit, I look far more authoritative.
My wife joked that I needed to put a lab coat on over the suit, pin on a
police badge, and carry a clipboard. Then everyone would be convinced of my
authority.

~~~
arethuza
Pretty much as the Milgram experiment found out -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment>.

All it takes is a lab coat to be perceived as an "authority figure" by most
people - with distressing results.

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merraksh
In the phase diagram on Wikipedia, which is more precise, shows a negative
slope on the transition frozen-liquid, unlike the sketched version on the
second video, which, I guess, is for all other elements. On such a negative
slope, if the temperature increases the transition will continue to occur if
the pressure decreases.

Isn't this negative slope well in accordance with the fact that water expands
when freezing?

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jvdh
Ah, now I understand that glaciers actually are made of a different kind of
ice!

I've seen glacier ice on numerous occasions, and it has a very blue tinge,
unlike normal ice. I now understand that that is probably one of the other
ices that is formed at a very high pressure.

~~~
ubernostrum
No, glacier ice is blue for the same reason the ocean is blue; ice absorbs
similar wavelengths to liquid water.

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pbz
If you put it in container that it can't possibly break, will it not freeze
completely?

~~~
ElbertF
You can try this at home with a bottle of beer. Put it in the freezer, forget
about it (happens to me all the time) and open it. It freezes instantly.

~~~
ynniv
This has to do with dissolved gasses which escape on opening changing the
freezing point, not the inability of water to destroy an aluminum can.
Freezing water fractures solid rock, creates pot holes in roads, and has no
problem breaking a thin aluminum shell.

~~~
ElbertF
Interesting, thanks. That won't stop me from putting beer in the freezer
though.

~~~
yread
Gp ahead, just don't do it with beer bottles. It takes quite an effort to
remove all the little shards of broken glass and the fridge smells like beer
:)

~~~
ElbertF
I've never had that happen, but wouldn't the cap come off first?

~~~
Deestan
Apparently not; I've had a bottle of soda 'sploding in my freezer. I'm
guessing that since the bottle's neck is so slim the water there freezes
first, effectively "plugging" the bottle.

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commieneko
"There was a sound like that of the gentle closing of a portal as big as the
sky, the great door of heaven being closed softly."

~~~
commieneko
For our next chat we will be discussing the endochronic properties of
resublimated thiotimoline...

~~~
sp332
(Downvote? Really?) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline>

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MichaelApproved
Wouldn't the pipe be much more brittle when the co2 was poured on it?

~~~
ramidarigaz
I believe that's true. However, at my parents' cabin in the Rocky Mountains,
the pipes still blow if they aren't drained properly (they're at surface
level). It's only happened twice that I can remember, but it's quite
impressive to see a steel pipe with a crack running the entire length.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Also note the solution is not to insulate exterior pipes as said in the video:
insulation without a heat source simply delays the freezing. No, you have to
put heat tape around the pipes. Or drain them. Running water is also not a
solution - now instead of your pipes freezing, your drain will freeze. My
friend the plumber was always gleeful when the newsmen would pass along that
old urban legend: a long, profitable night for him, replacing drainpipes in
mobile homes!

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rick_2047
This is why bricks are not allowed to have bubbles, if some water gets stuck
in those in rain and in winter if it freezes we get cracks

~~~
billswift
A lot of normal building brick is pretty porous, if not protected from getting
really wet just before a freeze you get spalling, where the face of the brick
flakes off. Brick that is too non-porous on the other hand, like sewer brick,
forms relatively weak mortar bonds, which is why it is rarely used in
buildings.

