The slippery slope controversy

Posted 22 February 2006 by PvM

A little known secret is quickly growing into a worldwide scandal of unimaginable size and intensity: scientists do not know why ice is slippery. I am sure that many among you remember the textbook explanation that the pressure of the ice skate melts the ice and the skate slides on the water which then freezes. But now, the dedicated reporters of the New York Times have uncovered the scandal which is growing into what some claim to be the Waterloo for the Melting Ice Theory (MIT). A public outrage is spreading across continents over how science books have misrepresented why ice is slippery while scientists knew that the explanation was erroneous. What motives are guiding the 'MIT' lobby to surpress the truth about why ice is slippery? In a hard hitting article in the New York Times Kenneth Chang is showing how the scandal is slowly unraveling and how the ivory tower of science has been dealing with it. Some scientists, despite facing the inevitable backlash from their colleagues are no longer staying quiet. Although persistent rumors of scientists having lost their funding for spring break ski trips are spreading, the veracity of these rumors has yet to be determined.

Ice, said Robert M. Rosenberg, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University, "is a very mysterious solid." Dr. Rosenberg wrote an article looking at the slipperiness of ice in the December issue of Physics Today, because he kept coming across the wrong explanation for it, one that dates back more than a century.

For more than a century, scientist and science textbooks have been promoting the slippery slope explanation while dogmatically surpressing those who tried to assail the leading theory of 'slippery ice'. Who is trying to hide this mystery from science and worse from public scrutiny?

According to the frequently cited --- if incorrect --- explanation of why ice is slippery under an ice skate, the pressure exerted along the blade lowers the melting temperature of the top layer of ice, the ice melts and the blade glides on a thin layer of water that refreezes to ice as soon as the blade passes. "People will still say that when you ask them," Dr. Rosenberg said. "Textbooks are full of it." But the explanation fails, he said, because the pressure-melting effect is small. A 150-pound person standing on ice wearing a pair of ice skates exerts a pressure of only 50 pounds per square inch on the ice. (A typical blade edge, which is not razor sharp, is about one-eighth of an inch wide and about 12 inches long, yielding a surface area of 1.5 square inches each or 3 square inches for two blades.) That amount of pressure lowers the melting temperature only a small amount, from 32 degrees to 31.97 degrees. Yet ice skaters can easily slip and fall at temperatures much colder.

While alternative explanation have been proposed, they have so far failed to present the details necessary for such theories to be accepted. Some critics of the MIT theory have assailed these explanations as 'just so stories' and 'pathetically lacking in detail. They argue the existence of a specified and complex process shows that it is time for science to accept that the slippery of ice may be best explained by Intelligent Design.

91 Comments

blipey · 22 February 2006

I don't get it...what does this have to do with biology?

No, wait; my bad. I meant, "What does ID have to do with biology?"

Really nice article, but I don't think the ID crowd will get it.

Renier · 22 February 2006

Could I have some of the ice in my brandy please...

Now, please help me out here. I slipped and fell on the steps the other day? Is there a "Melting Steps Theory (MST)" somewhere, or did the Intelligent Designer trip me? Or just the less friction, the more slippery?

Sir_Toejam · 22 February 2006

and what about ice brushing in curling?

it must be magic, cause the idea that the brushes create friction that melts the ice and changes the trajectory of the stone can't be right!

normdoering · 22 February 2006

I propose a new theory, the theory of "Intelligent Slipping" or slippery intelligences...

Faidon · 22 February 2006

I'm sure the reason tongues stick to ice is the Intelligent Tripper's way of punishing those filthy methodologicalnaturalists who don't find the Slippery Word enough and just want to try everything...

Renier · 22 February 2006

ROFLMAO

Thinking Freely · 22 February 2006

While alternative explanation have been proposed, they have so far failed to present the details necessary for such theories to be accepted.
— PvM

Maybe not in the scientific community, but I'll bet if we organize enough Abramson money and slippery characters in one place, we can write a few ~~cdesign proponentsists~~ scientists to be "Dissenters from Skate-Pressure-Melts-Ice-ism" like so:

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of pressure from an ice skate to account for the slipperiness of ice. Careful examination of the evidence for skate-pressure-melts-ice-and-that-is-why-it's-slippery theory should be encouraged.
— Dissenting

And if we can only get some Steves on our list, unlike the paltry four that appear on the Disco Institute's: Stephen Cheeseman (Geophysics) Stephen Crouse (Kinesiology) Steven Gollmer (Atmospheric Science) Stephen Sewell (Medicine) ...of course, inviting anyone with a doctoral degree to "dissent", and not just physicists and chemists, sure would help us, too.

Renier · 22 February 2006

The idea of slipping is Irreducibly Complex(IC). If you take away the ice, or you take away the ice skater (slipping person), then there could be no slipping, thus, the whole thing is IC. Anyway, we all know the ice skater was front-loaded (pushed backwards), therefore he slipped, and could never have slipped without being front-loaded.

The Slipping Institute demands that we teach kids that the Melting Ice Theory (MIT) is a theory in crisis, and that the Intelligent Slipping Theory (IST - thanks norm) should be taught instead, since the MIT leads to immoral worldviews and are a cold atheistic conspiracy. This is the reason kids are always trying to be "cool" and wear strange clothes.

Dr. Slipsky did some maths and proved that a person can only slip when pushed, thus random or unguided slipping is a devil doctrine. Furthermore, Dr Slipsky proved with his maths that if we analyze the patterns made by the slipper's bum prints on the ice, we can conclude that an Intelligent Slipping Agent is behind everything, including global warming, frostbite and bad maths.

DaveCrotch, from Uncommon Slipping blog is banning people who dares ask what exactly the Intelligent Slipping Theory (IST) is, whilst grooming John. A Slippedandfellonmyheadson...

More ice for my brandy please...

Jaime Headden · 22 February 2006

God favors iceskaters!!!

Julie Stahlhut · 22 February 2006

I don't think we should be teaching these things to impressionable children. Ice kills. Remember Dr. Atkins.

David Heddle · 22 February 2006

It has been known for a very long time that the textbook explanation for why people can iceskate is incorrect--my undergrad thermo teacher made us read a russian paper from the 70's that had an alternate explanation--although I cannot recall the details.

It's not that ice is slippery that we IDers admire--it's that fact that it floats, and that water in general has high latent heat, high specific heat, low thermal conductivity, low viscosity, high melting and boiling points, and high surface tension. Those properties are all very "fortunate" as far as life is concerned.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 February 2006

Those properties are all very "fortunate" as far as life is concerned.

The space aliens who made us thought so, too, Davey. Just ask Behe.

hessal · 22 February 2006

So the battlelines are being drawn. How soon before we go to court to keep the scourge of ISTism out of the classroom? Clearly this is another dogma put forth by the ISTists, and I for one will be first to the school board, before my kid is exposed to the dogma of Freud's first slip...

Renier · 22 February 2006

*snort*

Humor is lost on some people... like fundies... and IDiots...

Floater Heddle once again reminds us that water is different, because the Intelligent Slipper designed it to support ice skaters. Floater Heddle would like to remind is about his version of the Intelligent Slipping Theory (IST). A better theory thus is the Intelligent Floating Theory (IFT), stating there is an Intelligent Floater, and he lets ice skaters "float" on the ice, thus there is no such thing as slipping. This same entity, the Intelligent Floater is also responsible for the physics of the floaters you find in the toilet(Loo,John,Sh*thouse).

KL · 22 February 2006

Intelligent Floating??!?

I might as well flush all that stuff I covered on Density at the beginning of the year. Bummer.

Rick @ shrimp and grits · 22 February 2006

It's not that ice is slippery that we IDers admire---it's that fact that it floats, and that water in general has high latent heat, high specific heat, low thermal conductivity, low viscosity, high melting and boiling points, and high surface tension. Those properties are all very "fortunate" as far as life is concerned.

I am reminded of a textbook I have in my office called Elements of Chemistry, which says:

The effects of temperature upon liquid water is distinguished by a peculiarity of a very striking kind, and exhibits a departure from the general laws of nature, for a purpose so wise and beneficient, as to afford one of the strongest and most impressive of those endless proofs of design and onniscience in the frame of creation, which it is the most exalted pleasure of the chemist, no less than of the naturalist, to trace and admire.

The book was published in 1845. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

Chiefley · 22 February 2006

The crying shame is that all this time, the melting-icists have dogmatically shut out all legitimate criticism from mainstream science. Obviously, our only choice, as proponents of Intelligent Slipping, is to take this right to the local school boards and Rick Santorum, where it can be resolved with the highest degree of objecivity in the full light of high school students and Republican Senators.

Skaters-melting-icism is a theory in crisis. There are a lot of gaps in this theory and it should finally subject to critical analysis. Its time for all of us to demand the free exchange of ideas!

Teach the Controversy!

By the way, I invite you all to purchase my books, Icons of Melting, and Pandas and Ice Skaters, coming to a bookstore near you.

AD · 22 February 2006

Ah, nothing like a good parody.

I wonder how the FSM would address the MIT controversy. Perhaps we should start pushing to "teach the controversy" at youth hockey camps and figure skating lessons?

steve s · 22 February 2006

Anyway, ID Melting is obviously correct, because of how sensitive to temperature ice is. Temperatures in the universe range from nearly 0K to 100 million K. On this scale, if you change the temperature of 32Âº ice even just a *hair*, less than a millionth of a percent, to say 40Âº, ice skating would be impossible.

What more proof do you need?

FastEddie · 22 February 2006

In related news, toilet water is cleaner than fast-food ice -- according to an article on the ABC news web site.

Roadtripper · 22 February 2006

Did you know that the bond angle in ice crystals had to be fine-tuned to within twenty orders of magnitude, or the ice wouldn't be slippery at all? This proves that the universe was intelligently designed for ice skating.

Mr Christopher · 22 February 2006

I notice you are all conveniently ignoring *snow* in this discussion. I am sick of these ice theories (and it is a theory) being shoved down our children's throats as if it were a fact.

I'm not saying the ice theory is the cause for teen pregnancy and teen drug use, but the number of teens in trouble today is staggering. Our youths could use a frozen water theory that is uplifting and empowering.

I for one plan to write my local school board and demand our children be taught an alternative to the ice theory, mainly the snow theory.

I am sick of the dogmatism surrounding ice theories. I say teach the controversy and let kids decide. Let's give our children some credit and teach them both theories.

Mark my words, the ice theory is a theory in crisis.

nitpicker · 22 February 2006

Well, now it's time to teach the controversy in physics! http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060220/full/060220-7.html. "Physicists are searching for violations to the theory of relativity." Obviously, the science community has other dogmas it is attempting to promulgate on an unsuspecting public.

Steverino · 22 February 2006

It's slippery becuase it was "designed" that way. I can see the hand of G.......mmmm....The Designer in the design of ice. Thus, proving once and for all....(drum roll)...God did it...and, it goes really good with Capt'n and Coke!

Tracy P. Hamilton · 22 February 2006

"In related news, toilet water is cleaner than fast-food ice --- according to an article on the ABC news web site."

My theory is that bacteria in the ice are pushing
people along, using their intelligently designed butt-propellors.

Maybe we can return the favor at a music concert,
pushing ice (Vanilla Ice) along when he stage dives.

Sorry, I misspoke when I said the word "music".

steve s · 22 February 2006

thanks to the admin for fixing the botched comment I complained about. Here's to hoping someone shows the KwikXML team the meaning of the term "fail gently".

James Slade · 22 February 2006

Obviously, the melting by pressure concept is refuted by a simple thought experiment. I know that I am very good at slipping and falling with my skates. I keep hoping that if I stand still, the water supposedly melted by my blades will freeze me to the ice and I will finally be able to stand up. Guess what? Never happens! Maybe as I am standing, the ice continually melts under the pressure? However, water is a fluid, and if the melting by pressure concept were true, then all I would need to do is stand still long enough and I would eventually melt through to a sufficient depth for the water on the sides of my blades to freeze to support me. Again, this never happens.

James Slade
Red River College

Lynn · 22 February 2006

Posted by FastEddie on February 22, 2006 10:43 AM (e)

"In related news, toilet water is cleaner than fast-food ice --- according to an article on the ABC news web site."

Hey! That's true! I sent my botany students out with sterile cotton swabs and nutrient agar plates to collect samples, and the sample from inside the ice dispenser in the cafeteria was amazing! Much more entertaining than anything we collected from the rest rooms ;^)

Rich · 22 February 2006

I'm amazed that no-one has commented on the obvious fallacy in MIT theory.

It violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!

Once the ice melts (becomes less associated), there is no way that it can regain information return to it's solid form.

An outside agency is obviously needed to explain things.

Sean Foley · 22 February 2006

Ice was not slippery before the Fall (obviously). The current slipperiness of ice is best explained by remnants of the Vapor Canopy that once encircled the earth clinging to the blades of skates and the surface of ice thereby facilitating skating.

Interested readers are referred to Henry Morris and John Witcomb's seminal book The Genesis Zamboni.

AC · 22 February 2006

It's not that ice is slippery that we IDers admire---it's that fact that it floats, and that water in general has high latent heat, high specific heat, low thermal conductivity, low viscosity, high melting and boiling points, and high surface tension. Those properties are all very "fortunate" as far as life is concerned.
— David Heddle

It just never gets old, does it?

The effects of temperature upon liquid water is distinguished by a peculiarity of a very striking kind, and exhibits a departure from the general laws of nature, for a purpose so wise and beneficient, as to afford one of the strongest and most impressive of those endless proofs of design and onniscience in the frame of creation, which it is the most exalted pleasure of the chemist, no less than of the naturalist, to trace and admire.
— Rick's 1845 chemistry book

Wait...this conceit is obviously immortal, so it must be divine!

wamba · 22 February 2006

We must teach all sides - including my Freezing Sleet Monster theory.

BWE · 22 February 2006

Wait til you get a load of this controversy!

Our moon is GEOLOGICALLY ACTIVE!!!

This absolutely blows the lid off everything. It rips down the curtain that the little diabolical scientists hide behind while they pull the silent strings of the liberal (read that Satanic) media. Evolution is proved false. Plate techtonics and redshift, the other two pillars of modern materialist scientists will fall like dominoes. I like to call this the "Dominoe Theory" (in deference to Dan Quail- Cheney hunts quail, others Duck or Grouse).

Hmpf. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you liberal, atheist, commie, pinko, homo, perrier drinking, volvo driving, educated segment of the population.

Sir_Toejam · 22 February 2006

*ahem*

perrier is so "yesterday"...

not-BWE · 22 February 2006

Yeah! Take that. Now we drink water.

Rob Knop · 22 February 2006

I wonder how the FSM would address the MIT controversy. Perhaps we should start pushing to "teach the controversy" at youth hockey camps and figure skating lessons?

Allow me to point out that a big mess of spilled spaghetti source is slipperly....

I think everything is now clear.

-Rob

BWE · 22 February 2006

pardon, that should have read:
not-BWE;)

Chiefley · 22 February 2006

I for one am a Young Ice Creationist, or YIC. We believe that all ice is "Young Ice" and it is only 4000 years old, being water from the original Great Flood.

Using the latest calculations from Flood Hydraulics, we have determined that Young Ice hasn't been around long enough to get bumpy. Therefore it is slippery simply because it is young.

By default, if the Melting Ice theory is wrong, the only explanation can be Young Ice. We can prove this through the time honored application of GebrauchVonFalscherDichotomie.

Paul Flocken · 22 February 2006

Hmpf. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you liberal, atheist, commie, pinko, homo, perrier drinking, volvo driving, educated segment of the population.

Hey BWE, you forgot Berkenstock wearing. :^)

BWE · 22 February 2006

Darn. Birkenstock wearing, organic milk drinking, godless, casual sex having, evolution believing, pansies!

Bruce Thompson GQ · 22 February 2006

There is currently paleontological evidence of Pandas from the ice age found in China. So Pandas could have developed ice skating as a method to move from habitat to habitat. There is ample modern photographic evidence of Panda's interacting with
Snow and ice and they seem to have a preference for these substances when they are available.

As argued previously, the Darwinian Pressure Group is a measure of the pressure applied by the Pandas thumb to bamboo for stripping leaves, but this does not address the original selective pressures that may have lead to the development of the additional digit.

I suggest that the additional digit arose in response to balancing as Pandas tried to reduce surface contact with the ice, reducing friction as they ice skated across frozen bodies of water during the ice age. Pandas without the additional digit were subject to falling flat on their face while skating across frozen ponds forcing them to travel around frozen bodies of water expending additional energy in the search for food resources and mates. While those with the additional digit could balance each paw in a tripod fashion with each claw acting as a blade while pushing with each hind paw moving rapidly across frozen lakes. This adaptation would allow these Pandas more rapid access to resources in addition to providing a mechanism for stripping bamboo leaves. Also substituting bone for cartilage in the modified sesamoid bone would decrease the probability of tendon damage during ice skating, as observed in modern ice skaters.

This suggests that Panda skeletal remains should exist without the additional digit from pre/early ice age sediments followed by skeletal remains with "thumbs" of varying lengths. Pandas from post ice age sediments should show a decrease in "thumb" size as the ice skating selective pressure was removed and only the bamboo selective pressure remained.

Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)

Anton Mates · 22 February 2006

It's not that ice is slippery that we IDers admire---it's that fact that it floats, and that water in general has high latent heat, high specific heat, low thermal conductivity, low viscosity, high melting and boiling points, and high surface tension. Those properties are all very "fortunate" as far as life is concerned.

Indeed! Whereas molecular hydrogen and helium aren't very much use at all to our sort of life. Therefore Satan created Jupiter.

I wonder how the FSM would address the MIT controversy.
— AD

It wouldn't. Cold pasta's terrible.

BWE · 22 February 2006

I'm telling you. GIve em an inch and they take a mile.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060220/evolution_pla.html

Jason · 22 February 2006

Wait til you get a load of this controversy! Our moon is GEOLOGICALLY ACTIVE!!!

OMG, that link is hilarious. None other than Jack Chick! "Io is quite small, yet it has the most active volcanoes we know of," writes Vance Ferrell in The Evolution Cruncher. The usual evolutionary model claims that all the planets and moons were molten 5 billion years ago. Then they cooled for a billion years as volcano activity decreased. Yet, Io contradicts this theory. It is obviously quite young since its internal heat has not had time to cool. Whoo! who buys this crap?

Jason · 22 February 2006

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1024/1024_01.asp

Just check out Chick's latest tract.

It's pretty sick.

Mike Z · 22 February 2006

If it's pistols at dawn over a little thing like why ice is slippery, what chance do we have with something really complicated like evolution?

Another controversy that doesn't really seem to be settled is whether the Bernoulli effect is the principal cause of lift in airplane wings.

On the other hand, bees still fly, skaters skate, and planes do fly with the appropriate camber.

KiwiInOz · 22 February 2006

I wonder if the koalas ice skated from Mt Ararat to Australia?

Sean · 22 February 2006

Cheney hunts quail,
— BWE

Funny. I thought he hunted lawyers. There is no mystery why ice is slippery. Its ice!

Sir_Toejam · 22 February 2006

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060220/ev... That article is just terrible.

Research on toads, frogs, salamanders, fish, lizards, squirrels and plants are all showing evidence that some species are attempting to adapt to new conditions in a time frame of decades, not eons, say biologists.

*sigh* You'd expect at least a little better from something put on by an entertainment channel that at least purports to be about science.

normdoering · 22 February 2006

Sir_Toejam, your link didn't work.

Sir_Toejam · 22 February 2006

i copied it from BWE's post (81585) above.

it works there.

Bruce Thompson GQ · 22 February 2006

KiwiInOz asks: I wonder if the koalas ice skated from Mt Ararat to Australia?

I think the question we should be asking is do Koalas or marsupials in general have any specializations that would allow them to ice skate. I'm unaware of any morphological specializations that would aid Koalas in ice skating. Although a consideration of biogeography of marsupials might shed some light on the possibility of ice skating in this group of animals. A comparison of new world marsupials (opossums) with those in Australia might point to some unrecognized morphological or behavioral specialization relating to ice skating. Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)

Karen · 22 February 2006

Are the mainstream scientists shivering because the ice is cold? Or is it really because they are scared to death of Melting Ice Theory (MIT)?

Sir_Toejam · 22 February 2006

I'm unaware of any morphological specializations that would aid Koalas in ice skating

hmm. how bout padded feet, thick fur, a short tail, and sharp claws on their toes? I'm absolutely sure those things have NOTHING to do with climbing trees, and everything to do with ice skating. I've hear the preposterous notion that these things have to do with climbing trees, but even if we WERE to see koalas climbing trees, the best we would be able to conclude is that these traits that clearly evolved for ice-skating have been co-opted to climbing trees.

Bruce Thompson GQ · 22 February 2006

Sir_Toejam claims: I'm absolutely sure those things have NOTHING to do with climbing trees, and everything to do with ice skating.

All the traits you reference are not specializations and found in many animals. But if the primary selective pressure leading to the development of padded feet, thick fur, and sharp claws were ice skating then these traits should not be present in these animals before the advent if ice rinks or other skating opportunities. In addition, animals with these traits should cluster near paleo ice rinks in the fossil record. I'm not clear how a short tail enhances ice skating? Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)

Sir_Toejam · 23 February 2006

and sharp claws were ice skating then these traits should not be present in these animals before the advent if ice rinks or other skating opportunities. In addition, animals with these traits should cluster near paleo ice rinks in the fossil record.

but you are clearly forgetting that early pleistocene ice-covered lakes were quite common. the point of the short tail is it wouldn't drag on the ice, like a long tail would, thereby reducing drag coefficients.