How do waterfalls freeze while in motion?
In: Chemistry
The same reason water freezes while standing still. The average speed of the individual water molecules gradually and uniformly slows down. Eventually, the molecules move so slowly it becomes favored for them to stick together and stop flowing, adopting the properties we know as ice. But I guess you’ll ask “how does something that’s essentially falling slow down midair?”. Let me try to explain…
Instead of seeing ice as an instantaneously halting of atomic motion, imagine a stream of particles whizzing down the waterfall. As they cool down i.e lose energy, they all begin whizzing by at a slower and slower speed on average. Some particles go a little faster, some a little slower, all traveling around the average. Eventually a colder portion of the population slows down so much they freeze. Those water molecules flowing outside or better put ~around~ that population insulates it keeping it ice, alwhile the flow itself becomes colder and colder until it too freezes.
Think of it like a crystaliziation process, growing from inside the coolest part of the waterfall’s stream and outwards. Likewise the process is procedural. At one point, the waterfall 100% liquid. The next, the waterfall is 70% liquid and 30% ice, the liquid portion flowing over a central ice core. Then finally its 99% ice and 1% liquid, with just the faintest trickle of liquid running down the outside, until that too freezes and you get a 100% icefall.
Latest Answers