3 ms·
Maybe this is worth updating on wikipedia. They didnt know that around freezing you have equilibrium that is both melting and freezing. As you leave that the
by mkirklions 8y ago
Maybe this is worth updating on wikipedia.
They didnt know that around freezing you have equilibrium that is both melting and freezing.
As you leave that the equilibrium shifts to freezing only.
Thinking that each of those fibers from the moss start the strand and the ice grows as a result.
EDIT: Chem engineer here, not sure what to cite on something like this, or even the proper language.
- djsumdog 8y agoYou can put your idea on the Talk page, or just put it in. You'll probably want a source that relates to ice formation (a source relating it to this specific phenomenon would be better .. or this might be brought up in one of the existing sources and you can re-use it).
- jschwartzi 8y agoThis sounds like statistical mechanics thinking to me. At the macro-level, water that is at freezing temperature but that has not frozen yet will appear liquid. However, what's happening at the micro level in the fluid is that small pockets of the water are switching back and forth from frozen to liquid as their bonds tighten up from loss of thermal energy. There's still enough energy in regions of the liquid mass such that these isolated crystals may not be crystals for very long, because the thermal energy transfers from hotter to colder regions, but because the whole mass is bleeding energy into an external system it will eventually reach a tipping point where larger crystals can persist for longer, until eventually the water turns into ice.