Hot Ice

[Michaelangelica]

LiveScience.com - Scientists Make Ice Hotter Than Boiling Water

"Water" we were told in science-class, "can be a solid liquid or gas."
No -wrong
It can be in many states.

"Water expands when it freezes>"
No wrong
not always.

Not much point doing science when the buggers change their mind (especially about something so basic) all the time.

Has anyone seen anything else on this on the web? I find it fascinating.

[Jay-qu]

There are many forms of ice.. all with different crystal structures and packing densites, dont remember where I read about it though..

Thats the thing about science though, 'they' have to lie about it to make it simple enough for the young ones to understand but at the same time be able to build upon it at a later date.

[CraigD]

Though pure, “glassy water” at 1 atmosphere pressure can melt as low as about -130° C, AFAIK, none of the 10 known forms of pure water ice at 1 atm can remain solid above 0° C, regardless of its crystalline structure. The remain 4 known forms of water ice can only be formed at pressures above 1 atm.

The Live Science article doesn’t mention which forms of ice the Z machine experiments produced, and disagrees with the wikipedia article linked to above, stating that there are 12, not 14 known forms of ice.

There’s a fictional water crystal that melts well above 0°, at 45.8°: “Ice nine” from Vonegut 1963 novel “Cat’s Cradle”. As readers of this novel likely recall, the discovery and synthesis of seed crystals of this fictional stuff, originally envisioned as a way to eliminate mud, eventually leads to its accidental being dropped into an ocean, and a Really Bad Thing.

The chemistry of the melting temperature of ice is above my head, so I wonder, without the skill to answer my own question, if there are any rigorous proofs that ice with a melting point much or at all above 0° at 1 atm is not possible, or placing an upper limit on the number of crystalline form of water ice?

PS: perhaps this thread should be moved from websites to chemistry?