His explanation, actually first given by Michael Faraday in 1859, was later found to be wrong. According to a 2005 article "Why Is Ice Slippery" published on Ph

His explanation, actually first given by Michael Faraday in 1859, was later found to be wrong. According to a 2005 article "Why Is Ice Slippery" published on Physics Today, even when a layman is wearing a pair of skating blades, his/her weight can only lower the melting point of water by about three to four degrees. Yet skating is still possible when the temperature of the ice surface is as low as -30 degrees Celcius. Pressure melting cannot explain why skating blades can make ice surface slippery enough in this scenario.