[MJA]

Ice?

RP, you brought up a great question from days gone by. Years ago I owned and operated a commercial ice plant. I would fill stainless steel rectangular forms with water and suspend them in a glycol solution tank that was refrigerated below 32 degrees. The food grade antifreeze would stay liquid and the water in the block forms would turn to solid 12 lb crystal clear ice blocks. I questioned many times why I had to leave room in the forms for expansion or why water expands while freezing when a common law of physics would say the opposite, that it should contract? Of interest, the forms were completely open on the top side. Many times the force of expansion would split the steel forms at their seems. The expanding ice would not take the path of least resistance by overflowing the form, but rather blow apart the steel forms.

Another ice question arose while attending a physics class on the mathematical formula for alchemy. The learned professor stood at a black board and explained with numbers and graphs at what point a liquid becomes solid. In the end he said there was a finite point to when the change happens. With a stick he pointed to his and the finite point. Well, I could only disagree. Watching ice form in my ice plant for years I saw that there was never a point, or moment in time when the water turned to ice, but rather only a slow process of change with no point at all. Is there a point, or is the point only relative?

MJA