A Song of Ice and Science
It's been very cold here in Baltimore and there's a skin of ice over portions of the harbor. Which led me to an interesting observation today. Here's a picture that I took out the window
I've marked the areas where there's ice versus the areas where it's water (yes, yes, I know, it's all water, but some of it isn't liquid). The surface there is much more chaotic. However, notice what happens in the ice-covered section. It's only a thin layer, probably much less than an inch, so it still moves around. But instead of the chaos of the water, there's a regular, longer wave pattern as seen in the regular (and faint) parallel strips of dark and light in the bottom. There's also a change in direction in the liminal area, which is fascinating.
Now, I don't know how it works in this case specifically, but I'm guessing that the ice, being thin and flexible, comes to resonance as kinetic energy is constantly pumped in from the more chaotic water and from whatever breeze there is.
Science!
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