Regelation

I’m going to explain why you have a snowball’s chance in hell in getting back with your ex. But look at it this way. I’m going to explain to you WHY the snowball even has a chance. Now, you’re interested suddenly in this post, aren’t you?

REGELATION

Regelation is the phenomenon that explains why snow balls are formed from snow when you push the snow together. Have you ever thought about why when you take some dust-like snow in your hand and squeeze it together, it forms a solid block which you essentially in you swag language call a “snow ball”? Have you?

Instead of me defining what regelation is, why don’t we perform a little experiment on ice, together?! Take an ice cube of about 10 cm in length. Some of you at this point must be asking why 10 cm? Because I’ve never seen a freezer that can form a cube of 100 cm and wouldn’t that be pretty big!

So, now that we’ve closed off on the debate of the size of the cube and I now have an ego boost by proving you were stupid in your question which was rhetorical, let’s apply pressure to it in a “certain” manner. See the emphasis on certain. Ooh, Mysterious huh? This is because pressure can be applied in different ways and different forms. Heating the ice or hitting the ice! Just giving an example. So in a certain way… why? to observe the phenomenon called regelation.

Now comes the exciting part! Take a copper- aluminum string and attach some weights on its loose ends and put it over the block and see the magic unfold before your eyes. Due to the attached weights, string passes through the block, and you standing there feeling like a superhero just because you sliced the ice into two parts, but have you really?
Well, it depends. Depends on the weights you have taken and be sure not to throw the string from a height. Just gently place it over the ice cube. And consider the weights in a way that, their weight allows the string to pass through it.

Now to our original question, did you really slice it into two halves? The answer might surprise you or maybe not because of the drama that has unfolded till now. No, you’re not the superhero you think you are. There you go. There is your answer! Santa isn’t real either. Now, questions are beginning to arise, why didn’t it get sliced, why copper string, why me? Why would I say that?

Okay, let’s explain one by one. The phenomenon you just experienced is regelation. Regelation is melting and freezing of ice, when pressure is applied and removed simultaneously. See, what pressure does is lowers the melting point and it allows the string to pass through it and since the pressure at the initial portion is gone, the melting point hence increases and that portion freezes again. It wasn’t actually rocket science or magic, was it? Or you may call it magic, because science is magic and it works!

Now the part about why copper strings or why a string with high value of thermal conductivity? Because when the portion that freezes after the pressure is removed, heat is released and the material then conducts the released heat to the portion it is in contact with, causing it to melt easily and allowing the string to pass easily. You may try this with normal thread or fishing string but I’m afraid you might not get the same results.

This experiment works better in temperature about -10°C or cooler but you can just about perform it in room temperature or maybe try lowering down the temperature via the AC.

SOURCES

1. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1501/1501.06981.pdf
2. https://www.brightstorm.com/science/physics/heat-transfer-and-change-of-phase/regelation/