Don’t deny it, no matter how hard someone pegged a block of it at your face or how many times you’ve slipped on it while wiping the snow off your car in the morning, its about to happen all over again soon because Winter’s coming fast. What is it I’m referring to? Nothing other than ice, of course!
That’s right, ice! That lovable, handy combination of H, 2 and O frozen at a temperature of 273K for your enjoyment. Ice is a part of our every day lives as it is commonly used for simple tasks such as freezing a finger you lost in your tech class while operating a jigsaw. Okay, not all people are as daring and curious as that one kid it always happens to each year but there’s more!
Ever wonder why when you ask for a glass of water as a restaurant there’s none of what you’d call, “water” in it? You’ll get about two sips out of that straw and then— hey, where did my water go?! There you now find yourself waiting impatiently for your waitress to come back out but as you realize they only come to check up on you when you don’t need them to. Once you tell them off the first four times, which happens within the first two minutes of eating your food, they’re gone until you want your dessert.
Frustrated, you gently pound your fist on the table so not to draw attention to yourself by the people at tables around you and then put your mouth on that straw again, pretending as if there would actually be more in there to drink… but wait, there is! Where did that come from? Just a moment ago you had no water in this glass but now you’re finding some? Have you gone crazy? Are you outside and there are birds flying overhead? The latter, at least is incorrect! You see, you have had a glass of water in front of you all this time but haven’t noticed it!
Restaurants want you to have the freshest and purest water they can get you from a tap, so they simply give it to you while the water’s still processing. By giving you 4/5ths frozen water in that glass, they’re guaranteeing you they didn’t have a dead fish floating around in the pitcher before you came. Instead, you could think it was a dead fish, FROZEN in there, which is completely normal because it preserves the body and bacteria doesn’t get to it.
Be grateful your waitress went out for a 20-minute smoke, you may have nearly choked to death on the bone to a chicken wing but you have at least just discovered SCIENCE! By the time she gets back, you’ll have already gotten a full glass of water by just staring at it. Who said a watched pot never boils? Well… I do, because by experience, it doesn’t, but watched ice? Watched ice certainly melts.
That’s ice, the little trickster it is.
Open yourself up a little bit (surgically works best) and you’ll soon discover the benefits of ice and why it sometimes makes you late to school or work in the morning. It just wants to help.
Now that I’ve introduced you to ice, here’s this photograph I made of ice in a cubed form, to honor all the waiters and waitresses who lost 25% off their tip because people don’t understand the purpose of ice cubes in their drink.
(Click for full size)
It makes a nice Windows 7 background on my 1440×900 display, just pop in a black taskbar. =]
