The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1922-02-08
is ICE HOT OR COLD?
An Interesting Scientific Phenomenon Is Ex-
planned to Reader of the
Serviss Articles.

may find both ice and snow whose
temperature is below 81 degrees,
and sometimes far below. John
'Tynda1i used often in his expert
ments to reduce the temperature
of ice a hundred degrees and more
below the freezing point, after
ward warning it up. The trouble
is that our minds get glued with
certain narrow notions concern
ing the way in which nature acts
outside the limits of our ordin.
airy experience.
Thus the idea of warmth ICON
nection with ice is apt to seem
self-contradictory and ridiculous.
But with little wider knowledge
we see that it is perfectly nat.
ural-though outside the line of
our usual perceptions--that ICE
should be either warmer or colder,
according to circumstances, so
long as its temperature keeps be,
low the melting point. ...
For what, after all, is ice? So.
lidified water. If we lived in a.
world where the temperature was
and always had been below freeZ-
ing we should know water only az
one of the solids, a beautiful, blue.
white, transparent very hard,
brittle, stone or metal. AS our
bodily temperature in such
world would. probably be accord
ant with our surroundings we
might employ IN fine-grained
stone. as we now do alabaster, TO
make delicate ornaments. 1t
might even serve for keen points
TO tip arrows.
There is nothing wonderful
about this. No more would it be
wonderful if we lived in world
where the temperature never sank
below some 1900 degrees to see
no solid iron. but only iron as a
splendid glowing liquid. But IL
the temperature in a world where
iron was habitually liquid occa-
sionally sank one or two hundred
degrees, permitting the iron to be-
come temporarily solid, that solid
would be capable of descending
hundreds of degree still lower in
temperature without producing
another alteration of its physical
state, /. O., it would remain solid
iron, after il had once condensed
from the liquid state, although it's
temperature continued to sink I'M
I'll II became iron as we are accus-
toned TO see it in our actual
world.
The analogue of this occurs
when ice falls in temperature far
below the freezing point. 1t does
not change its state, but remains
SOLD water. When it is a hundred
degrees below the freezing point
1t yet radiates heat which will be
felt as heat by bodies that are at a
still lower temperature, for we
may imagine a third world in which
everything is customarily say, two
hundred degrees below freezing.
Now, introduce into such a world
a block of ice at the ordinary tenn
perature at which we are accus-
toned to handle il. and that block
would become a stove for the in
habitants of that cold world. 1t
would radiate heat freely in all
directions around it, until it's own
temperature had sunk to 200 de-
grees below freezing point, where!
upon it would be like a stove
whose fire had been burned out,
while it's temperature had fallen to
that of the surrounding air.
Ice formed in sea water freezes
At lower temperature than pure
water ice. The average tempera-
ture of formation of such ice is
given as ESQ Fab, or "a degrees
below the ordinary freezing tenn
perature. The. sensibility of our
skin is so nearly paralyzed by ex-
IRENE cold that il is not easy di
rectly to de tect differences Of tenn.
perature in ice, unless the differ
ence is very great. Snow is some
times colder than ice in direct con.
tact with il, and vice versa.