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"I operate by a code that makes me responsible for what I do, makes me definitely, directly, genuinely responsible. I am precisely the kind of person I made myself out to be."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Ice-Nine | ||
| A crystalline form of water so stable that in practical terms it would never melt. |
A general had a problem: mud. Marines have slogged their way through it for generations. Is it possible to get rid of mud? Without having to carry anything heavy? Marines already have enough to carry.
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker, found the "outside-the-box" answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.
| "...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...?"
"The puddle would freeze?" I guessed. "And all the muck around the puddle?" "It would freeze?" "And all the puddles in the frozen muck?" "They would freeze?" "And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?" "They would freeze?" "You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" |
| Technovelgy from Cat's Cradle,
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Published by Random House in 1963 Additional resources -
|
And where would the freezing stop? Unfortunately, the melting point of Ice-Nine was 114.4 degrees; once the entire planet locked up, it would probably never melt.
Here's what the world looked like after Ice-Nine was released into the environment, crystallizing all water on Earth, locking it into the Ice-Nine configuration.
In fact, there really is a form of ice called Ice-IX. Ice-IX was discovered in 1968. It exists only under high pressure and does not have the properties of Vonnegut's ice-nine (thankfully!). Kurt Vonnegut's brother held a PhD in physical chemistry from MIT; he published papers on silver iodide and ice formation (cloud seeding). So that's one possible source for the idea.
It has also been suggested that, when Vonnegut was working at General Electric (in public relations), he was inspired by a company story relating to H.G. Wells. When Wells visited G.E. in the 'thirties, Nobelist chemist Irving Langmuir was tasked with keeping Wells entertained during his visit. Langmuir came up with an idea about a form of water that was solid at room temperature. Wells never published a story about it, but Vonnegut thought it was worth using.
Crystallized water, or ice, has a greater variety of crystalline structures than perhaps any other material. Ordinary ice (like you might skate on) has a hexagonal structure; water at different temperatures and pressures forms solids that are rhombohedral, tetragonal, cubic, or orthorhombic in structure. Some forms of "frozen" water are disordered (non-crystalline).
Just so you know, the regular ice in your refridgerator is hexagonal ice, Ice-Ih. That's what makes nice hexagonal snowflakes. Aren't you glad you asked?
See the comments for this item to read more about ice-nine and polywater.
There were no smells. There was no movement.
Every step I took made a gravelly squeak in blue-white
frost. And every squeak was echoed loudly. The season of
locking was over. The Earth was locked up tight
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Cat's Cradle
More Ideas
and Technology by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tech news articles related to Cat's Cradle
Tech news articles related to works by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Ice-Nine-related
news articles:
- Ice-Nine Modeled In Harvard Computer - We're Doomed
- Neowater - Like Intracellular Water
- Ice Formation At Room Temperature Is Possible With New Material
| Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles |
| Centipede Robots Down On The Farm |
| Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics |
| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
