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 43 points 3 months 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 3 months 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 22 points 3 months 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 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months 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 3 months ago

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

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

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

[–] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] AliasVortex@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's where they get you

About our extended car insurances

[–] crt0o@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 months ago

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

[–] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 14 points 3 months ago

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

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 8 points 3 months ago
[–] Amuletta@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months 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 3 months ago (1 children)

It was trying to give you a present.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

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

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months 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).