The first paragraph describing Tao's musings on the explosive potential of water reminds me of a singular experience I had not too long ago. One evening I was

The first paragraph describing Tao's musings on the explosive potential of water reminds me of a singular experience I had not too long ago. One evening I was going to pour myself a glass of lemonade. I put a otherwise ordinary ribbed juice glass[0] on the counter, got a couple ice cubes out of a tray in the freezer, and lightly tossed the first one in the glass. The ice cube hit the rim and the glass shattered utterly. There was no piece fragment left much larger than a small piece of gravel. I was stunned. I thought for a moment maybe a sniper was targeting my glass from somewhere outside in the darkness. It seemed like a fairly sturdy glass. My hand wasn't more than a few inches from it when I released the ice cube. The only explanation I could come up with is the universe is essentially probabilistic and I had just witnessed some kind of winning-the-Mega-Lotto-odds improbable sort of event. My brother is a material scientist and I ran the episode by him next time I saw him. He had a slightly different take on it. He said, "Glass is weird. It's like water in some ways." And then he dove into some interesting technicalities that I can't recall. Closest I can say I've seen to water spontaneously exploding. Unless you count this.[1] [0] Looked sorta like this, but clear: https://img1.etsystatic.com/046/0/8523418/il_340x270.705982403_hx07.jpg https://img1.etsystatic.com/046/0/8523418/il_340x270.7059824... [1] http://www.surfline.com/surflinetv/featured-clips/worst-wipeout-ever-at-teahupoo_129724 http://www.surfline.com/surflinetv/featured-clips/worst-wipe...