The surface of ice is a slippery subject. For more than 160 years, scientists have been debating the quirks of ice’s exterior. Frozen water is coated in a layer of molecules that behave like a liquid.
The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is coated by a thin watery layer. Scientists generally agree that this ...
Neutron-scattering experiments have revealed a predicted high-pressure phase of ice called ‘plastic ice VII’, in which molecules form crystals, as they do in normal ice, but rotate as in liquid water.