As you all remember, I posted an image yesterday and described the actions of water freezing in the ground and what happens when it does. I admit that the picture wasn't the greatest to show what had happened, but Rita, aka Three_grrr had asked in her comments about the background picture and why, so I posted it with the explanation. Tonight/today, I'm posting this image of the birdbath with the water frozen it it. Now normally a frozen birdbath is not something that a person would normally post. I mean, come on, it's just a birdbath with ice in it, right? Well, when you think about the dynamics of water as it transforms from regular water to the next form, ice, it's really quite remarkable. How many of you have given any thought to why, when you put water into an ice-cube tray, the water is flat and smooth, but when it freezes, it's not. When you look at tonight's posting, you'll see the ice-cube tray example in the extreme. When you think about the physics involved when water freezes, this is really quite neat. With the exception of ice-cube trays, birdbaths and other manmade objects that are exposed on all sides, including the bottom, most bodies of water will freeze from the outer edges towards the center and then downward. this is because the air & surface temperature of the land just touching the edge of the water get to and below the freezing point before the rest of the water, including and especially the bottom of that pond or river. You see that happen over a long period of time if you live near a river, lake, pond or stream. the slower the body of water, the quicker it will freeze as well. Anyway, in the case of the birdbath, the stone conducts the cold equally throughout and so, if the temperature stays below freezing for a long enough duration, the water starts freezing along the edges first towards the center of the birdbath, then, because the underside of the birdbath is exposed to the same temperature and it transmits the cold throughout, the water at the bottom starts freezing upwards, from the edges towards the center as well. If you've ever taken an ice-cube tray out too early, you notice that the center/middle of the cube may not have frozen at all or it may have a thin crust on the top. You're probably wondering where all this is leading to, well here it is: As water freezes, it expands due to the nature of water molecules when the state changes from liquid to a solid, the molecules line up and form latice-like structure and as such, the alignment does not allow for any sneaking in between itself. and so, it expands due to the crystalline nature of the state, and hence, when you've got a birdbath or ice-cube tray with frozen water, you have an ice-mountain bacause the liquid has to go somewhere, and in the case of the two items, the only place it can go is up, there is no other direction. Ask anyone who remembers the old glass milk containers with the paper lids, they can tell you what happens if the milk froze, it popped the top right off the bottle and stuck up a few inches above it. If the bottle had been sealed like today's bottles, the glass would have shattered. So tonight I present to you the birdbath ice mountain! Sorry about the long-winded explanation, but this is an interesting subject and if I had thought about it, I would have included a vector diagram to illustrate it further. I may later on if anyone is interested. Thank you for your patience and also any comments you care to leave. Enjoy and have a great day and week. I'm just praying that the weather-man is correct and the snow we're getting tonight will be gone by the time I get up in the morning (we've got 3 inches in an hour - I know that's not much, but we just got out of one week of not being able to get anywhere, I just don't want to repeat that event again).