Talk:Ice-nine

• Why is this article filed under "Ice-9"? In Cat's Cradle, it is consistently referred to (in italics) as "ice-nine".

• Can anyone verify the existence of the ice-9 mentioned here (not the real ice IX), or the drilling platforms? I'm skeptical.

Tim

• According to this site: Here is a paragraph from a recently published article from the Journal of Chemical Education (Vol. 81, 2004, p.509)that you may find interesting:

"Although ice-nine is fictitious, it does have some interesting ties to the real world (4). The author of the story, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., graduated from Cornell University with a major in chemistry. Vonnegut took a job in the public relations office at General Electric where his older brother, Bernard, was working in the lab and had discovered how to use silver iodide particles for seeding clouds to precipitate rain and snow. The author Vonnegut credits the invention of ice-nine to Irving Langmuir, who pioneered the study of thin films and interfaces. While working in the public relations office at General Electric, Vonnegut came across a story of how Langmuir, who won the 1932 Nobel Prize for his work at General Electric, was charged with the responsibility of entertaining the author, H.G. Wells, who was visiting the company in the early 1930’s. Langmuir is said to have come up with an idea about a form of solid water that was stable at room temperature in the hopes that Wells might be inspired to write a story about it. Apparently, Wells was not inspired and neither he nor Langmuir ever published anything about it. After Langmuir and Wells had died, Vonnegut decided to use the idea in his book, Cat’s Cradle."

• In this science news article] it is said that "Although Ice-9 of Cat's Cradle (1963, Holt, Rinehart and Winston) is pure fantasy, the concept of a molecule assuming multiple crystal structures—or polymorphs—is real, and the consequences can be dramatic."

• On this site it is said that: "Vonnegut's Ice-9 is a cute plot twist with no connection to observation. We've looked! No matter what anomalous form of solid water at whatever pressure and temperature we've made, it always melts to ordinary water at ambient pressure above 0 degrees C."

• In this online science lecture, it is stated that: "Ice-9 is a fictional material – we haven’t gone that high in naming ice structures."

• In online article about the phase diagraph of water it is said (see this page linked form the original article for reference notes) that:

"Kurt Vonnegut's highly entertaining story concerning an (imaginary) ice-nine, which was capable of crystallizing all the water in the world [83], fortunately has no scientific basis (see also IE) as ice-nine, in reality, is a proton ordered form of ice-three, only exists at very low temperatures and high pressures and cannot exist alongside liquid water under any conditions. Ice Ih may be metastable with respect to empty clathrate structures of lower density under negative pressure conditions (i.e. stretched) at very low temperatures [520]."

No longer a stub?

After the latest re-write, it seems to me the article is no longer a stub. Consensus? Riobranden 21:20, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

• I took off the tag, expansion isn't urgent or easy and there are plenty of worse stubs. Generally there's no point getting consensus with stub tags, they aren't important enough. Just take it off if you want to and let anyone put it back if they disagree. Kappa 14:59, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion debate

This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splash^talk 23:57, 19 September 2005 (UTC)