The Physics of Ice

Abstract

Ice is an important substance in everyday life as evident when participating in snow sports or driving on frozen roads. Ice also plays a critical role in meteorolog- ical models of clouds, geology formed through glaciers, and engineering bridges or buildings in climates with cold winters. Despite these motivating factors, the underlying physics of ice is not fully understood. In this paper I discuss some of the fundamental properties of everyday ice and how we can apply those ideas to some of the 17 other crystal phases. Additionally, there are still many misconcep- tions as to what makes ice slippery. In an attempt to explain ice’s low coefficient of friction I address the many contributing factors and end with a heat-based model of µ.