Electrical experiment...

1. Use a VOM to measure resistance in "increments" in the "water" and across the width of the "ice". See what you get!
2. Take 2 nails/screws/etc...... freeze them in water - ends sticking out of the cube but not touching inside it. Once frozen - hook up one end to a battery, from the battery to a vom or meter movement for current - the the other end of that meter to the remaining end of the cube. See what you get. As for "AC", I'd suggest a "safe" set up to avoid electrical shock - or not trying it at all. The DC test should be enough to prove something at least. You could use a switch in line too, but if you use a smaller battery - the reading may be offset a bit in current lost across the switch.

Personally, I've never had interest in doing this, so I can't say for sure - but I'd venture to say you "will" see some conduction. There is still going to be that small amount of surface liquid present as it is melting due to room temperature - UNLESS - you can hook it up with longer wires and leave it in the freezer. But then, I'd think too - the current would cause some "heat" - therefore "melting" effect.

Come to think of it, I was looking for some projects to do to show electrical flow/electronics fundamentals to some newbies........... I think I'll do this myself. Sounds interesting.

Maybe someone "has" more definative answers..........

What a silly/stupid question. I hear the troll alert sounding - - - you forgot to prefix your statement with "I'm an engineering student and . . ."

As you're probably well aware, water is an insulator.

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Sure, it will flow through copper, won't it?

(I.e., you may want to think a little harder about just what "frozen solid" means, and which ones you'd like to talk about. There are many substances, though, with freezing points considerably higher than what we might think of as "room temperature.")

Bob M.

Ultra pure water is an insulator. Anything dissolved in it lowers the resistance.

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

you left out the ever famous "I an experienced technical person but the question I'm asking shows that I don't have the most basic knowledge of how this thing works".

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a) Reading is recommended, resistance of most common materials is given in many technical manuals. b) At US$80/hour a 24 hour experiment of putting a glass of water in deep freezer with two wires in it and taking readings every hour should be able to give some indication of the change.

"What was the question?"

Stanislaw Slack user from Ulladulla.

I'll do it for you for $79/hour, money up front of course ;)

Mark

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Actually, I was just curious and this seemed like the best place to ask. I understand that pure water does not conduct electricity well, but most water has impurities that allow it to conduct. For a temperature experiment, such as this one, involving freezing, the low conduction of the water would probably show drastic results from one temperature to another compared to say a copper wire with different temperatures. But if you call curiosity "trolling" then I guess I'm guilty. Lighten up, asshole. Good day :)

You left yourself open to castigation with the statement: "Can someone experiment with this and differentiate between the resistance of solid ice and warm water?"

You are the curious one yet you expect someone to run this experiment to satisfy your curiosity? Assuming someone were to get equally fired up with curiosity (more so since they would actually be running your experiment) you'd have to be more precise than "warm" water, ion concentration in the water, electrode size,spacing and material, current density, freezing points, etc.. Then you'd end up running the experiment over and over to see which variables affect the results and how.

I did some work on melting points - there's one thing that seems pretty consistent, Pure substances have melting points, and mixtures have melting ranges. Pure may melt at a point one degree change in temperature and a mixture can take five degrees to go from solid to liquid. I didn't do water but I'd expect to see the similar results.

Now, had you prefixed your questions with something that indicated that you did some research of your own, or just asked if anyone had and could they direct you to information, it would be more considerate than: "I'm just curious, so would someone else do the work to satisfy my curiosity."

Does that make sense to you?

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what? like solder?

no.

conduction in ionic solutions (like water) is due to the movement of ions. when frozen the ions are trapped.

Bye. Jasen

Water is an insulator (most transparent materials are); it has a slight ionic character, though, and the disassociated ions DO cause conduction. If you get the pH exactly to seven, the conduction is minimized; small amounts of impurities almost always change the pH and raise the conductivity. Large changes in pH (like strong acids) result in very high conductivity.

Ice doesn't have free ions like liquid water, BUT the surface of a block of ice is slippery because of surface-melting; you have to get VERY cold ice before that slippery film goes away. Put another way, water as a liquid is chemically partly decomposed into ions (and isn't exactly a pure insulator because of it). And water as a solid is partly liquid (because the surface isn't in the middle of a block of ice, it doesn't act like 'pure' ice).