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Aug 10 2020 05:00pm
i put some water bottles into the fridge to make them ice cold. forgot them there for hours though. came back and took a bottle out, it looked normal. but when i tried to drink it, it turned into ice when i rotated the bottle. so i was like wtf and i read some shit how it actually needs something to form ice on, so when you shake the bottle, then it turns into ice :unsure:

so i was thinking. imagine if someone froze that shit to like absolute zero or something, would it still be liquid? and how does the mercury in thermometers freeze then? it doesnt really move, how does that go to solid state?

i have so many questions :mellow:
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Aug 11 2020 03:58pm
its a liquid when it is liquid and not when it is below a certain temperature
mercury freezes at about -39 degrees

your question is, if supercooled mercury exists? i dont know :mellow:
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Aug 11 2020 04:06pm
Quote (Richter @ Aug 11 2020 11:58pm)
its a liquid when it is liquid and not when it is below a certain temperature
mercury freezes at about -39 degrees

your question is, if supercooled mercury exists? i dont know :mellow:


man, i learned in school that water freezes at 0 C and this shit was at like -10 or so and it didnt freeze, this is some weird shit. but then i hit the bottle and it froze immediately :wacko: ! so i was like, if it didnt freeze at -10 unless you move it, will it freeze at -50? or -100? OR -273.15 :cry: ? this is some fucked up shit, lemme tell you :wacko:
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Aug 11 2020 04:19pm
yep sounds crazy :)

but school cant teach ALL the edge cases of physics, due to limited time (of you AND the teacher)

pretty funny that you observe supercooling before having read about it... you are kind of lucky, like the first person to try cola-mentos ;)
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Aug 11 2020 04:23pm
Quote (Richter @ Aug 12 2020 12:19am)
yep sounds crazy :)

but school cant teach ALL the edge cases of physics, due to limited time (of you AND the teacher)

pretty funny that you observe supercooling before having read about it... you are kind of lucky, like the first person to try cola-mentos ;)


thankss :blush: ! but it scared me :cry: ! i thought like, if someone cooled this to like -50 and didnt know and drank it, it could freeze while he was drinking it and kill him or by lowering the temperature in the stomach a lot cause he would think its water above melting point :wacko:
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Aug 11 2020 04:30pm
shaking lets it freeze probably due to particles getting from the plastic bottle into the water?

however touching the water would instantly freeze the water, so drinking would be nearly impossible?

ok found a video:
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Aug 11 2020 04:36pm
Quote (Richter @ Aug 12 2020 12:30am)
shaking lets it freeze probably due to particles getting from the plastic bottle into the water?

however touching the water would instantly freeze the water, so drinking would be nearly impossible?

ok found a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNrWvZ5V_18


i guess so :unsure: ! but still a scary thought..

i cant believe that asian guy tried it :cry: although it doesnt seem THAT cold so its doable i guess :wacko:
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Aug 11 2020 05:45pm
A phase transition is a kind of chemical reaction

H2O (liquid) -> H2O (solid)

When you do a chemical reaction you need an energy to do it, that is there's a barrier of high energy that needs to be overcome. If there wasn't the reaction would have already happened.

When your water is sitting there in the freezer with no disturbances there's no "push" to get over that barrier, but when you poke it, or take the top off, or whatever, it creates a little jostle that results in the activation energy being overcome and the reaction happens.

Now, when water freezes, it releases energy. We know this because if you start taking energy out the temperature will stay constant until all the water freezes. Since water freezing releases energy, when you poke it the energy released from that section freezing then gives adjacent water the energy to overcome the barrier and freeze as well, and continue the process throughout the entire liquid. Additionally, the surface of the newly formed ice creates a "low energy barrier zone", because it takes less energy to add to an ice crystal than to start a new one, so that also allows a chain reaction and freezing to happen.

This is the basics, there's a lot more that can go into it if you want to get a Ph.D in chemical physics, but until then this is all the explanation you need for the basics.
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Aug 11 2020 05:52pm
Quote (Thor123422 @ Aug 12 2020 01:45am)
A phase transition is a kind of chemical reaction

H2O (liquid) -> H2O (solid)

When you do a chemical reaction you need an energy to do it, that is there's a barrier of high energy that needs to be overcome. If there wasn't the reaction would have already happened.

When your water is sitting there in the freezer with no disturbances there's no "push" to get over that barrier, but when you poke it, or take the top off, or whatever, it creates a little jostle that results in the activation energy being overcome and the reaction happens.

Now, when water freezes, it releases energy. We know this because if you start taking energy out the temperature will stay constant until all the water freezes. Since water freezing releases energy, when you poke it the energy released from that section freezing then gives adjacent water the energy to overcome the barrier and freeze as well, and continue the process throughout the entire liquid. Additionally, the surface of the newly formed ice creates a "low energy barrier zone", because it takes less energy to add to an ice crystal than to start a new one, so that also allows a chain reaction and freezing to happen.

This is the basics, there's a lot more that can go into it if you want to get a Ph.D in chemical physics, but until then this is all the explanation you need for the basics.


hm okay i get that. i think :unsure: but what if i dont give it that initial energy? like, chill it to absolute zero but without shaking the bottle? would it freeze then, and why :wacko: ? also if yes (and i know its yes, i just dont know why), whats the minimal temperature that i can chill it to, without it randomly turning to ice?

also if the water needs initial energy to start the reaction, why doesnt the heat of my hand holding it start the reaction :unsure: ?

my head :cry:
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Aug 11 2020 06:26pm
Quote (Snyft2 @ Aug 11 2020 06:52pm)
hm okay i get that. i think :unsure: but what if i dont give it that initial energy? like, chill it to absolute zero but without shaking the bottle? would it freeze then, and why :wacko: ? also if yes (and i know its yes, i just dont know why), whats the minimal temperature that i can chill it to, without it randomly turning to ice?

also if the water needs initial energy to start the reaction, why doesnt the heat of my hand holding it start the reaction :unsure: ?

my head :cry:


In theory you could freeze it to an arbitrarily low temperature as long as there was absolutely no disruption.

Absolute zero is not physically possible because of the quantum mechanical nature of electrons, but I get you mean an arbitrarily low temperature.

The full physics of water isn't fully defined, so if you want the full story you'd have to go do research on the subject to get more information and develop a better theory.
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