murrmac
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Can anybody explain how this inverted icicle could have come to be formed ?
This mug of water had been sitting outside for a few days, last night the temperature in Edinburgh dropped to below zero, and this morning I saw that this ice stalagmite had formed.
There was no source of dripping water which could have caused this, is there a simple physical explanation for what I see as a strange phenomenon ?
This is not a hoax or wind-up btw, there was no fakery involved, and this is a genuine untouched picture, ( I have taken the mug inside and put it in my freezer to preserve it )
EDIT: I see that this is not the first time this has been posted on the Forum , this thread from two years ago https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=273135 contains a useful link to a paper in which the phenomenon is discussed and explained at some length.
As I might have guessed, if you search for "ice spike" on Youtube, there are several videos there depicting ice spikes of various shapes and sizes.
This mug of water had been sitting outside for a few days, last night the temperature in Edinburgh dropped to below zero, and this morning I saw that this ice stalagmite had formed.
There was no source of dripping water which could have caused this, is there a simple physical explanation for what I see as a strange phenomenon ?
This is not a hoax or wind-up btw, there was no fakery involved, and this is a genuine untouched picture, ( I have taken the mug inside and put it in my freezer to preserve it )
EDIT: I see that this is not the first time this has been posted on the Forum , this thread from two years ago https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=273135 contains a useful link to a paper in which the phenomenon is discussed and explained at some length.
As I might have guessed, if you search for "ice spike" on Youtube, there are several videos there depicting ice spikes of various shapes and sizes.
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