Today's Science Experiment: The Thaw

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:19:21 -0600

Yesterday I left a bottle of water in our car, which naturally froze overnight. We made it all the way down to 0 or so last night and thus, it was really really frozen.

So for your entertainment and mine, today's science experiment: How long will it take this bottle of water to completely thaw?

The definition of "completely thaw", for my purpose, is such that when the bottle is shaken, no sounds are made. In addition the bottle will not be jostled or moved unless absolutely necessary. The temperature on my desk clock reads 72.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Progress

45 minutes: 45 minutes since the bottle arrived on my desk, it has made it to large iceberg status. Thus, there is now fluid around a core of ice. Stay tuned.

2.5 hours: The iceberg is getting smaller and is now floating at the top of the bottle, leaving roughly 1" of pure pure water at the bottom. We're at medium iceberg status. Woo!

3.5 hours: We're making more progress. The iceberg is getting smaller but still takes up a good amount of the bottle. Medium iceberg still, but... getting there!

4.5 hours: We're now down to small iceberg. The core of ice is less than half of the bottle now. Ryan had predicted six hours as being the amount of time necessary and I think that's a pretty good bet.

4.75 hours: The bottle has now contracted, narrower than its original shape.

This here is quality web content, I tell ya!

5.25 hours: We're now at medium icicle status. The core is now in the shape of a... well, yeah, an icicle... and has decreased in size quite a bit. Also of note, my thermometer is now reading 73.6 degrees.

5.5 hours: Oh, we're kicking it into high gear now. Now the ice is just a large icecube!

5.67 hours: Down to medium icecube. Ryan's prediction is looking very very good.

5.70 hours: Small icecube. No idea why I'm spelling "ice cube" as "icecube". (That's another post.)

5.75 hours: Ice sliver! Should be ready for consumption very soon. Also, no idea why I'm using decimal to denote time.

5 hours 50 minutes: We're done. The ice has completely melted.

The conclusion then, is that when presented with a situation that is exactly identical to mine a completely frozen bottle of water will melt in 5 hours 50 minutes - or, roughly 6 hours.

Now I'm going to drink the thing, because I'm thirsty and it's ice cold! Just like Vanilla Ice!

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Reasons to Love Chicago

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 08:28:16 -0500

This Week's Weather

Check out that awesome forecast: we're going from 76 and sunny to 40 and sleet/snow in four days.

Per the weather guru Tom Skilling, if it snows Thursday that'll be our earliest snow since 10.7.00. And I thought we'd have a mild autumn....

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Today's Science Experiment: The Thaw

Reasons to Love Chicago