Wed Nov 16 2005

Supercooling Demonstration (thanks to special guest Prof. Ken Ritchie): Put filtered water in a plastic bottle in your freezer for, say, 4 hours. Now, carefully remove it from the freezer, and shake the bottle vigorously. We did this, and saw ice crystals begin to slowly form in the water, because the liquid water was supercooled, and the ice phase was technically more stable. (Some crystals even resembled snowflakes, and grew larger as they floated to the top.) You may have to experiment with how long you leave the bottle in the freezer. Too short a time, and nothing happens. If you freeze the bottle longer, a vigorous shake will turn the whole bottle white as crystals form everywhere. Too long, and it will all freeze in the freezer. Do try this at home! Today we discuss nucleation in first order (abrupt) phase transitions. The ice crystals in our supercooled bottle of water formed through nucleation -- tiny ice crystals grew larger over time. The arctic cod is a supercooled fish,...