Reply #94: I'm not sure what 'pure scotch' is, but if you can make an ice cube sink [View All]

[karlrschneider]

in a glass of it, I'll kiss your ass at noon on the steps of the First Baptist Church. But you have just contradicted yourself...first you say that adding ethanol makes stuff with density < 1.00 and in the very next paragraph you admit alcohol is heavier than water. :eyes:

There is probably some kind of liquid with a specific gravity exactly equal to that of pure H2O ICE but I can't think of what it would be...in that case (you called it the 'boundary case' which I've never heard of) the ice would be in equilibrium and would stay wherever it was put...at the top, bottom or middle.

At any rate, I think we are in agreement that ...let's put it this way: given an equal number of discrete molecules (same mass) of H20, they occupy a greater volume when frozen. Right?
Which is why ice floats, right?

edit: There are other 'types' of ice with very very different physical characteristics but they are not found anywhere in nature that I'm aware of. Asimov dealt with them in some detail in one of his books, I forget which one.