Physicists Discover the Most Complex Forms of Ice Yet

(quantamagazine.org)

29 points | by ibobev 2 days ago ago

7 comments

  • mwigdahl 2 days ago

    I was surprised to see no reference to ice-9 from Kurt Vonnegut's _Cat's Cradle_...

    • Matterless 2 days ago

      Right?! Anyway for anyone who hasn't read it, go pick up a copy. Cat's Cradle is not too long, and it's funny and engaging and altogether worthwhile. And you'll always think of ice/9 when you see an article like this one.

    • gilleain 2 days ago

      Well, the image titled 'The Shapes of Water' has 4 examples - 'Ice Ih', 'Ice VIII', 'Ice XV', and ... 'Ice IX' :)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_ice#Known_phases - in this table, apparently discovered in 1968

    • goodmythical 2 days ago

      Just a good idea to keep it all in the lab. Wouldn't want to accidentally end all life.

      Imagine we do all this worrying about nukes and climate change and germ warfare and we end up accidentally solidifying room temperature water.

  • deciduously 2 days ago

    Which one gives you that godzilla shape in the header image?

  • arm32 2 days ago

    The most complex form of ice is when my wife is angry with me.

  • xeonmc 2 days ago

    Can this potentially be leveraged to create qubits?