Tuesday, January 5, 2010
2010.Why is ice sometimes 'sticky'?Our bodies secrete tiny amounts of sweat, which is a salty fluid, onto your skin surface that actually makes your skin stickier. This is why we have it: for grip. If you then touch ice with your bare skin, the extremely cold surface of the ice causes the sweat to freeze on your finger. Because the sweat has got into all the nooks and crannies of your finger and freezes solid, it will form a very tight bond between your finger and the ice. You get stuck to the surface. If it’s an ice cube – it’s okay because there’s enough heat flowing through your fingers (usually to melt that transient freezing) then you can detach yourself. In the case of a -70 freezer or in the Antarctic, you have to be very careful about this kind of thing. If it doesn’t warm up, you can end up permanently frozen to the surface or injured quite badly. That’s why ice is 'sticky'. You get literally frozen to the spot.source: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/questions/question/2265/
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