Ice Nine

A general had a problem: mud. Marines have slogged their way through it for generations. Is it possible to get rid of mud? Without having to carry anything heavy? Marines already have enough to carry.

Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker and creation of Vonnegut’s mind, found the “outside-the-box” answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.

But, where would the freezing stop? Unfortunately, the melting point of Ice-Nine was 114.4 degrees; once the entire planet locked up, it would probably never melt.

Ice-nine is a fictional material conceived in the novel Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. It is supposed to be a more stable polymorph of water than common ice (Ice Ih) which instead of melting at 0° Celsius (32° Fahrenheit), melts at 45.8°C (114.4°F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8°C (which is thus effectively supercooled), it acts as a seed crystal, and causes the solidification (freezing) of the entire body of water which quickly crystallizes as ice-nine. (Journal of Chemical Education 81: 509. 2004)

Here’s what the world looked like after Ice-Nine was released into the environment, crystallizing all water on Earth, locking it into the Ice-Nine configuration.

               There were no smells. There was no movement. Every step I took made a gravelly squeak in blue-white frost. And every squeak was echoed loudly. The season of locking was over. The Earth was locked up tight. (Cat’s Cradle) 

It has also been suggested that, when Vonnegut was working at General Electric (in public relations), he was inspired by a company story relating to H.G. Wells. When Wells visited G.E. in the ‘thirties, Nobelist chemist Irving Langmuir was tasked with keeping Wells entertained during his visit. Langmuir came up with an idea about a form of water that was solid at room temperature. Wells never published a story about it, but Vonnegut thought it was worth using.

Actually, there really is a form of ice called Ice-IX. Ice-IX was discovered in 1968. It exists only under high pressure and does not have the properties of Vonnegut’s ice-nine. Kurt Vonnegut’s brother held a PhD in physical chemistry from MIT; he published papers on silver iodide and ice formation (cloud seeding).

~ by tammanyb on March 9, 2009.