My freezer is set at -21°C (-6°F) and tubs of ice cream come out hard as a rock and are near impossible to scoop. But if I set it a few degrees warmer, yet still way below the freezing point of water, I can scoop it easily. So, is there such a thing as both frozen and *really* frozen? Conversely, a boiling point is a boiling point, I believe. Heating water to a temp above 100°C gets you the same steam that you got at 100, just faster. Right?
In: 102
Something made purely of a single type of molecule (pure water) does change state sharply at a fix temperature (for a given pressure but as long as you are in open air, let’s ignore the pressure).
Anything that is not pure (ice cream, any salt/water mix, sugar/water mix, and even metal alloys like steel) start behave silly. Because inside there are molecules that are apply to freeze and others that don’t yet have any will to freeze. So there’s a transition range in your ice cream, where some ice crystals do form inside making it not liquid anymore, and it start to behave like a gel, then you cool it more and more crystals are formed and the ice cream can stand up but is not solid, and then if you freeze it more all the molecules inside become crystals and ice cream becomes rock solid.
There’s an internal fight in the ice cream between some more watery parts that want to get solid ASAP and some more greasy parts that want to stay liquid for longer.
In this transition the inside of your soft ice cream would look like wet sand if looked with a very powerful microscope.
Note: one of the most strange things I ever seen is when I grind titanium parts. If you make it hot enough, the alloy melts on the grinder while at the same time it stays together like solid steel. It’s like trying to make a clear cut into butter in a summer day, and instead of cutting it goes all over the place. And it’s at 1000 degrees and with the strength of steel. Awful material to work with.
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