Ice Circles

Alex

Crop circles are so passé - the next big thing are ... ice circles!

As circles and rings in ice-covered lakes and river-bays have become a relatively numerous documented phenomenon - especially in Scandinavian and other northern European and American countries, the latest case of an ice-circle in Russia (exact location and date of discovery unfortunately unknown) just adds another case of this most likely naturally caused circle-phenomenon.

Some believe that the natural explanation for this phenomenon are underwater vortices cause by through-running streams that follow natural outlines of bays and coves just as visible also in the above shown images, as well as differences in the water's temperature that might impact also the forming of the above ice-structure in such a way.

However, some rare examples of geometrically more complex patterns put the above described theory to the test - at least if presented as a simple single vortex-system or as the sole explanation for all patters in ice.

Link | English Russia has more pics


Comments (6)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

Do you hold crop circles to be passe because they have been explained? Or because they haven't?

If you know how they were created please tell!

They haven't stopped occurring by the way -
for example this is an August 08 formation in the UK (one of many 2008 formations, worldwide)
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@ Neatoramawontsendmeapassword

Dude, ice aliens...totally saw them one night after a night of heavy drinking and thick snow fall. And then...ZAP! I was under the ice getting probed and stuff.
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As mentioned in the English Russia site comments of this news (it's rare to have an interesting comment on this site, the users totally s*** unlike at Neatorama) this is man made and not natural.
One of the pictures shows a guy next to circles that are not achieved in the ice.
Apart of that, I think that it's a beautiful concept.
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i know it's demonstrating that you're scrolling through empty space - but it'd help to have some reference markers so you can see how far you've scrolled...
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What's more boggling to me is the "emptiness" between the proton and electron. Is the emptiness truly nothing? I can't seem to wrap my mind around space unoccupied by matter.
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It's not really empty. It's an electron cloud. It's not like that at a given moment the electron hangs there at a determined spot like a little bead.

Quantum physics is impossible to wrap one's mind around, and this kind of demonstration is not helping.

At that level of magnification, all you have is a probability of finding something. The electron will not follow a given path around the nucleus, it jumps around randomly.

The mental image we have of nucleus = planet and electron = moon is very unfitting.
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Yeah, Solo nailed it. The model is misleading and actually incorrect.

Kids are taught the Rutherford atomic model early on, because it's easy to comprehend. A clear analogy to the earth and the moon can be drawn. But it's wrong.

Later, students learn other atomic models such as Bohr's, but they're just models. They can accurately describe what happens to a point, but they're not actually what's happening by a long shot.

What's actually going on is way more mind-boggling than "there's a lot of space in an atom."
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"Perhaps a better model would have the electron zooming around like a crazy moon?"

No

"The mental image we have of nucleus = planet and electron = moon is very unfitting."
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What is the size of a a sub-atomic particle anyway?

At this scale, you can only talk about a particle's wavelength, which is inversely proportional to its
mass. So, the electron should be huge, and the
nucleus small.

Hmm... there's an idea for another model...

Empty space within an atom is irrelevant.
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