Comments on: Solve this ice cube mystery!

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:51:28 +0000

The ice where the spike is is clear thus showing that the water was aggravated when it froze Ie: dripping.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:45:52 +0000

I just want to say that I really needed a laugh today, thank you for the chuckles. And I learned something! Yay!

By: berta hertz

berta hertz — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:31:21 +0000

Ice cubes do not stick together when an ice bucket is lined with a plastic bag and cubes are placed in this. Do you know of a scientific reason for this? Thank you.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:39:12 +0000

Re Rhodri’s first comment: I think the ping-pong ball you saw a photo of in the Fortean Times was in my late mother’s bird-bath. It’s easier to work out what’s happened in such cases, since it’s obvious why there would have been a hole left in the frozen surface before the water underneath froze as well.

To divert the topic from scientific explanations to meaningless but entertaining coincidences: I knew my mother had sent that picture into the FT, but didn’t think it had ever been published, until a letter from magazine founder Bob Rickard, asking permission to include it in a commercial library, arrived at her former home on the first anniversary of her death. I was even more delighted to discover that I could call in on Bob to sign the contract on my way to visit her grave, since he lives just round the corner from the cemetery. He was also kind enough to give me one of his spare copies of the edition in which it had appeared, which must have been the only one I’d missed in about eight years (thanks again, Bob).

By: DXMage

DXMage — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:31:32 +0000

I have seen this happen in my own fridge. It isn’t condensation and it isn’t a stalligmight. If you have hard water or other impurities it is more common to see this. Also if you have ice trays that make the bigger cubes. I haven’t ever seen it happen in a small cube type ice tray only in the big ones that have the deeper cubes.

By: Mungo

Mungo — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:18:05 +0000

Clearly there has been condensation dripping inside the freezer onto the ice cube therefore forming a stalligmight.
Next.

By: justin

justin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:27:38 +0000

how this is going on is that when ice freezes it does so from the outer edge out. when it gets to the middle under the right conditions it will leave a small hole and when it starts freezing on the inside it forces water up through that hole which in turn freezes from the out side. It will grow until ether it freezes the hole closed or is completely frozen.

By: Onyx

Onyx — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:32:26 +0000

read the article here http://www.bspcn.com/2008/08/22/5-really-weird-things-about-water/ down where it says ice spikes it explains what’s going on scientifically

By: TheGabe

TheGabe — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:30:13 +0000

I can definitely, categorically say that what happened is that you left the freezer door open for a while, and some moisture got in.
This then attracted a small fish which happened to be passing. The fish probably would have seen the partly-formed ice cube and dove in thinking to free itself from the freezer, whereupon a bear swiped the fish out of the ice tray leaving a trail of partly frozen water in its wake.

By: chris

chris — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:08:48 +0000

sorry about the spelling error.
also sorry about the confusion, and thanks for clearing it up for me!

[not really a scientist, just find this stuff pretty interesting]