I have never seen anything like that in my life. I had assumed they must be some kind of purposeful artwork or something—and then I saw that the author had reproduced the same effect for himself. It was like being introduced to a minor law of nature that I had never happened to meet before.
Strange things in nature. I remember a natural' hologram produced on a car hood that had been waxed with a gritty cloth, when an ice sheet formed on the hood.
I far prefer this article to the one that's on Reddit's front page ( http://unicurvedmirror.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-have-been-gett... ), if only because it doesn't make the ridiculous -50 degrees (celsius) claim. I'm in Victoria, and it's currently 2 degrees, which is about the coldest it's been in a month.
This page demonstrates a true hacker ethic: playing with interesting phenomena to find out how they work. Aren't we lucky that you don't need electronics to hack!
I wonder if a similar effect is responsible for the little stalagmites that occasionally grow in my ice cube tray. (Yes, stalagmites. No, there is no moisture source above the tray.)
Fascinating! He quotes a description of something I've seen before in NW Washington, but could never explain:
>". . . ice-excrescences of soft, brilliant, asbestine appearance, and uncommonly delicate to the touch. . . ."
Saw it on a hike, growing from logs. Very soft to the touch. I would compare it to cotton candy, but the strands in cotton candy are more heterogeneous and less organized.
I suspect using a square steel tube would work better because it gives the pipe a very tiny bit of give relative to a round tube. It would allow a smaller hole and faster extrusion without cracking.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 39.6 ms ] threadhttp://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Tool-to-Draw-Scratch-...
* with explanations: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/icespikes/ic...
* with more links: http://www.fredandsarah.plus.com/ice/index.html
>". . . ice-excrescences of soft, brilliant, asbestine appearance, and uncommonly delicate to the touch. . . ."
Saw it on a hike, growing from logs. Very soft to the touch. I would compare it to cotton candy, but the strands in cotton candy are more heterogeneous and less organized.
http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593