20 Sep
2005
20 Sep
'05
3:56 p.m.
On Tuesday 20 September 2005 20:24, Eugene Salamin wrote:
Some years ago, RWG thought up the clever question: does heavy ice (frozen heavy water) float in ordinary water?
Regular ice's density is 0.914. Heavy ice (D2O) has two extra nucleons on top of 18 (16 for the O, 1 for each H), so it's 20/18 heavier than 0.914, or about 1.016. Therefore it should sink. The site jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA2/MAIN/ICECUBE/CD2R1.HTM says that D2O ice sinks, confirming this simple reasoning. Steve Gray