Kind: captions
Language: en
So, you want to see water freeze almost
immediately? Well, here's what you're
going to need. Uh, some very pure water.
Fiji water has been recommended to me uh
by a friend. And obviously, we're going
to need a freezer, some way to cool it
down. So, I'm going to put this uh
bottle of water in the freezer in the
area normally occupied by the ice cube
trays cuz I think that might be the
coldest part of my freezer. I've got two
bottles just in case one doesn't work.
And now we have to wait. There are lots
and lots of videos showing this
phenomena on YouTube, but very few that
explain how it actually works. So, I'd
like to take a minute and do that. Water
is normally a liquid at room temperature
because the water molecules are all
flowing past each other, tumbling around
each other, and that allows the
substance to flow. When something
becomes solid, its molecules all more or
less lock into place. They still
vibrate, but they're not rolling over
each other and moving past each other.
So, they can no longer flow. They're
solid. Now, what we're doing here is
super cooling the water. So, we're
taking it below its temperature, below
0° where it will it should become ice.
But it's very difficult for that water
to make the transition without somewhere
for that ice crystal to start growing.
So what we need is some kind of
nucleation event. If the water is not
pure, the impurities in the water
naturally act as sites where the crystal
can start forming. That's why it's very
important that we use uh very very pure
water. Another way we can cause this
nucleation event is to bang the water
bottle. Hopefully that'll cause a few
water molecules to line up in the right
uh way and that will seed the rest of
the ice crystal.
So, uh, let's give it a few hours and
we'll come back and try to nucleate
this, uh, this ice forming event. All
right, it's taken a few days and
multiple attempts, but I think this
could finally be it. I might have
finally created super cooled water. So,
uh, let's let's find out. I'm going to
take the water very carefully out of the
freezer.
And now you can see clearly that
the water is still liquid. You can see
this air bubble floating around. And now
I'm going to uh bang it on the counter
and we will see if we can get an ice
crystal to form.
Whoa, look at that. You can see that ice
crystal growing right down from the top
to the bottom.
So there you have it. I was finally able
to demonstrate the super cooled water
phenomenon. I cooled down the very pure
water in my freezer for 2 or 3 hours and
then by banging the water bottle on the
counter, I started uh the formation of
an ice crystal at the top of the bottle
of water which quickly grew uh down to
the bottom. Now, performing this
experiment was a lot more difficult than
I anticipated. I did this at least eight
times with about five different bottles
of water and I only managed to catch it
on tape once. So, uh it was a real
challenge. Things I learned were that
you can't leave the water in the freezer
too long, otherwise it will freeze up on
its own accord. And also, you have to be
very careful when pulling the water out
of the freezer that you don't bump it
because otherwise it will start freezing
uh right away before you have a chance
to uh uh to bang it on the counter. So,
give it a try and see if you can make it
work.