When a river stops running
There is a river that runs by my office building, as it has for hundreds of thousands of years.
It’s not running right now, at least not along its surface. It was running, even through the winter, until yesterday, when temperatures of -25 degrees Celsius finally caused ice to form on the top of the water, bringing its movement to a halt.
I don’t know about you, but the idea of that much water stopping, frozen, is pretty amazing when you think about it.
But what’s really happening when a river freezes?
- Is it that the energy that tends to hold objects at rest becomes stronger than the energy that keeps them moving?
- Or is it that the energy that tends to keep objects moving becomes weaker than the energy that keeps them at rest?
Physics will give us one answer: that as it grows colder, the energy to keep molecules moving dissipates the colder it gets. Molecules move more slowly as temperatures drop until you reach a point where the objects that formerly appeared to be moving now seem to be at a standstill, moving from liquid to solid form.
However, there’s a few things to consider here:
- Even though the top layer of a river freezes, the water beneath the top layer of ice can continue to move, sometimes quite rapidly. It takes a long time and a lot of cold to make something freeze completely solid.
- Frozen matter (i.e. ice) is not completely still unless it’s much colder than it normally gets on this planet. Molecules can still be moving in “frozen” matter, just extremely slowly.
- Does the river seem to stop flowing because of a loss of energy or an increase in resistance?
- Is the natural state of all things to be frozen (at temperatures around absolute zero) or is motion the norm?
- Note as well that even when you apply heat to something that’s frozen, it can take a long time for it to fully resume its liquid or gaseous state.
A river is often used as a metaphor for life in fiction. Could it also be a metaphor for the following things when temperature is applied:
- Will
- Resistance
- Determination
- Creativity
- Fear
Image by EclecticBlogs
EDIT (Feb. 3, 2010) – oddly enough, the ice broke up and the river started flowing again today. Weird.
monica:
I needed just a little extra to get me moving today and this helps. I enjoyed it. Thank you.
3 February 2010, 8:29 ammarkdykeman:
@Monica – thank you, I’m glad it was helpful.
3 February 2010, 10:09 amhow to get her back:
I was just passing by here and i read the title of your post and it makes me think that what happens if a river stops running..I read your whole post and its really interesting.Ne ways nice post!I will keep visiting this site often.
12 February 2010, 2:05 am