this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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xkcd #3144: Phase Changes

Title text:

People looking for the gaps in our understanding where the meaning of consciousness or free will might hide often turn to quantum uncertainty or infinite cosmologies, as if we don't have breathtakingly complex emergent phenomena right there in our freezers.

Transcript:

Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com

Source: https://xkcd.com/3144/

explainxkcd for #3144

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[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 41 points 1 week ago

No, it's angry you didn't give it a little jacket, now it's very cold and angy, so it's trying to stab you.

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fuck that, ice comes in over 25 different structural types or phases, the most recently discovered was this year. We still don't know jack shit about jack shit:

https://enl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_ice#Known_phases

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We recently figured out why ice is slippery. Normies make it seem like all that's left to learn is at the fringes, but it's not. Our gaps in knowledge are everywhere. Even you can be an explorer!

[–] khornechips@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I assumed it was because of a thin water layer that makes you essentially hydroplane when you step on it, am I even close?

Edit: Yes, but also no.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

More akin to marbles on a floor or a table shuffleboard setup!

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Great, who's going to go tell Richard Feynman?

[–] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] AliasVortex@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's where they get you

About our extended car insurances

[–] crt0o@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Reality: when water is cooled below 0 °C, it freezes... sometimes

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Also, even if it does nucleate, it only freezes if enough heat is removed from it to allow for the phase change to occur.

[–] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 13 points 1 week ago

Me: you've been in the freezer for hours now, please freeze Supercooled water: how bout nah

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago
[–] Amuletta@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I have seen photographs of this, but have never seen it in person. I wonder what special conditions are necessary for this to happen?

[–] maxwellfire@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

See here and here You need like a particular temperature and the ice crystals to grow with the right orientations from the edge inward and meet in a triangle in the middle.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I had a spike like protrusion in one of my icecubes from a regular ice cube tray you place in the freezer.

But couldn't tell you why though

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It was trying to give you a present.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Clearly. And I took it with grace and added it to my rum.

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

My hypothesis is that the freezer motor has to be right at the freezing point and the tray has to have few nucleation points such that when a small spek of water freezes the phase change disperses enough heat to prevent them from immediately following suit, the small flake of ice then rises to the surface. As it continues to cool, further freezing is more likely to occur in the existing crystal. Through a combination of ice's buoyancy and the surface tension of liquid water, the crystal gets pushed upward compared to liquid water.

I wonder if the fridge motor's vibration plays any role on where the fingers form (due to resonance patterns).