Re:Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
by _nalply on Sunday January 19, 2020 @03:22AM
(#22090166)
A disk is rotating its circumference scraping along obstructions such that the growth of ice is steered naturally to a perfect circle. This rotation has a fixed center and axis. A ball however would be scraped towards a cylinder if the same thing happened. To create a ball nature would need the same thing as someone making a wood ball on a belt grinder: vary the rotation axis. However if there are local stability minima, the block of ice would degrade to a preferred rotation configuration. Just thinking aloud here...
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Re:Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
by Someone on Sunday January 19, 2020 @09:09AM
(#22091495)
On the one hand, pebbles are more like spheres than like cylinders. On the other hand, they’re different in that they can only lose weight, whereas this can also grow.
I guess the end result would depend on the shape of the surrounding cave and on what fraction of its volume the object would eventually fill. I don’t see a tumbling cylinder made of ice inside a hollow sphere filled with icy water remain cylindrical in shape, for example.
On the other hand, inside a relatively tall cylindrical space where the water is below freezing temperature, things could be different (does the production of M&Ms involve tumbling?)