JIGGLING ATOMS GIVE ICE SLIPPERY SURFACE.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. It may be cold comfort to people still digging out from under the latest East Coast blizzard, but scientists say they now have a better idea why ice is slippery. ``People thought that the reason you can ski, or ice skate, is because the pressure or heat from friction turns a tiny layer of ice into water, and it acts like a lubricant,'' said chemist Gabor Somorjai of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientific research centers run by the Univ. of California, located in Berkeley, Calif., and Livermore, Calif., respectively. . ``But that is wrong, and it makes no sense anyway.'' That theory never accounted for why light objects slide just as easily as heavy ones, he said. Somorjai and his colleagues made their discovery while examining the role of water in chemical reactions. They discovered that the oxygen atoms in molecules The Atoms in Molecules or Atoms-in-Molecules or Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (Qtaim) approach is a quantum chemical model that characterizes the chemical bonding of a system based on the topology of the quantum charge density. at the surface of the ice were vibrating vibrating, v using quivering hand motions made across the client's body for therapeutic purposes. furiously, jittering jit·ter intr.v. jit·tered, jit·ter·ing, jit·ters 1. To be nervous or uneasy; fidget. 2. To make small quick jumpy movements. back and forth three times farther than oxygen atoms buried more deeply in the ice structure. They do not know why the surface oxygen atoms in ice vibrate so much. That is a subject for future study. But the result of the wildly jiggling oxygen atoms is that the ice surface smooths itself out ``like a fluid, and it acts wet even when it is not really wet,'' Somorjai said. The results of the study were outlined in this week's laboratory newsletter. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion