2019 PRX: nano-rheology of interfacial water (why it’s “slimy”)

15:50beautiful paper in 2019 in the physical review X by Canal and other authors nanorology of interfacial water during ice gliding. This is a paper that tried to understand why the water was slimy between my skate and my ice. Okay. >> Is slimy a technical term? >> Yes. I believe slimy is viscosity is anything above whatever oil is. [laughter] I don't actually know what the numbers uh or the units for viscosity are. That's something I should look up later. >> But but the point it it is meant to be a technical description. >> Yes, it it it's meant to be it's much more slimy than normal water. Normal water is not slimy. Yes.

16:30>> Right. I can just like >> get rid of it. It'll evaporate away. Slimy stuff doesn't evaporate. It's viscous. It's sticky. Things [clears throat] like that. >> And and we need that. Okay. So, the key challenge is that this film between the ice and where the water is sitting between my blade is an ephemeral film. It only exists during this dynamic act of sliding. Let's get into some of the chemistry behind what ice is and and how that layer works. So you've got a solid layer. The solid layer is very high molecular order. You've got nice water molecules that are stuck in a crystal form, >> regularly spaced characteristic of solids, right? So all of these water

17:11molecules are sort of, you know, interacting with each other, but they have they make this hexagonal lattice.