The alchemy of ice
DAVID HAMBLING ponders the many mysteries of water’s transmutation from liquid to solid
Ice is no surprise at this time of year, but the mysterious transmutation from liquid to solid still has a whiff of alchemy about it. Francis Bacon suggested that “whosoever will be an Enquirer into Nature” should study ice, and 400 years later researchers are still unravelling its mysteries.
Standard ice has a regular structure, the molecules stacked in a neat tetrahedral pattern, giving rise to the familiar crystalline forms. But just last year researchers at University College London found that it could adopt a different
