• Question: Why drinks over flow when ice melts

    Asked by Em12 to Ciara, Elaine, Golnaz, Gonzalo, Yannis, Yvonne on 10 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Ioannis Zabetakis

      Ioannis Zabetakis answered on 10 Nov 2017:


      great question!

      actually it is the opposite…

      The water is more dense in liquid form, i.e. it occupies less space than ice…
      A given volume of liquid water at room temperature will increase in volume by about 9.05% after freezing. Most materials do the opposite, that is, the solid form of most substances is more dense than their liquid form.

      so when an ice cube melts, the resulting water needs less space…

    • Photo: Gonzalo Delgado-Pando

      Gonzalo Delgado-Pando answered on 10 Nov 2017:


      Drinks don’t overflow when the floating ice melts. When water is ice has more volume than when is liquid, this means occupying more space. If you freeze a plastic bottle full of water it will expand and break it, because it has more volume. When ice melts occupies less volume, so the drink will drop and not overflow if the ice were totally inside the drink. But ice ciubes do not go to the bottom, they float. And you can see that not all the ice cube is completely inside the drink. When it melts the drink will have the same level.

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