: why does water expand when frozen but not other liquids?

Question

: why does water expand when frozen but not other liquids?

In: 70

Answer 1

Note that ice expands compared to liquid water, but once it’s all solid, if you cool down the ice more and more it will contract.

The reason for ice having more volume than liquid water is that the molecules of liquid water are close to each other (like grains of sand), but to form ice they rearrange into a [hexagonal pattern](https://www.quora.com/If-cold-contracts-and-heat-expands-why-does-ice-expand) with a huge gap in the middle.

So density of a liquid vs. its solid form depends on the pattern that the atoms form when they go into their solid “arrangement”. Most materials [pack their atoms](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/0b/03/68/0b0368f4d6e909a6c0d31c4bfb07c7cc–electron-microscope-transmission.jpg) tightly, though some can form [more spaced out patterns](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fa5e60ba2e4cf382b201346d80cf5b77).