Title：：Understanding Water Ice: Ten Weird Facts

Reporter：Prof. Chang Q Sun

Time：15:00pm, May 28,2018

Venue： Room 204 Building No.5, Institute of Mechanics

Abstract：As the source and central part of all life, the simple substance, water ice (H2O), bends the rules - it is too strange, too anomalous, and too challenging. Ideas in terms of continuum thermodynamics, molecular dynamics, or structural order configuration could hardly explain completely the weird facts that one can observe. From the perspective of hydrogen bond (O:H—O) cooperativity and polarizability, we have reconciled the mysteries of water ice subjecting to mechanical compression, thermal stimulation, molecular undercoordination, and electromagnetic excitation. Here we share understanding of ten typical facts: ice floating, ice regelation, ice friction, “instant” icing, nanobubble stability, water's tough skin, salt ice melting, floating water bridge, frog maglev, and the Mpemba paradox - warmer water cools faster. As the basic structural and energy-exchange unit, the O:H—O bond cooperative relaxation in length and energy rules the weirdness of water ice.