[Noisebridge-discuss] First Post: Non-Hg Liquid Metal

[Jonathan Lassoff]

Encapsulated within <422cea060906051619u40e8bee3i2d0a05b1317efa90 at mail.gmail.com> on Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 04:19:02PM -0700, Noah Balmer <noahbalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Noah Balmer <noahbalmer at gmail.com>
> To: weasel at cs.stanford.edu
> Cc: noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] First Post: Non-Hg Liquid Metal
> 
> *Water molecules are approximately L-shaped.  When they can flow feely
> around each other they can spoon and hook around each other in all sorts of
> ways that increase the density.  When they are frozen into a regular grid,
> the inside of the L is empty, so they are packed less densely.  Pressure on
> ice near the melting point can disrupt the crystal structure and re-liquify
> it, which is one of the reasons ice skates work so well.  A gallium skating
> pond might work too, though gallium loves alloying so much it might just
> dissolve the blades (it dissolves aluminum readily, don't bring it on a
> plane!) , and in its liquid form it's kind of sticky.

Awesome explaination Noah!

I've wondered this in the past, but never took the time to research it.
Concise technical explainations make my brain happy. I enjoyed reading
this. Thank you.

--j
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