Ice Is Way More Complex Than It Seems
The Quanta Podcast
Quanta Magazine
4.7 • 638 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the past decade, computer simulations have predicted tens of thousands of possible forms of ice. Though uncommon on our planet, exotic ice may exist in off-Earth environments, from cold and amorphous comet tails to the hot and crushing cores of icy planets. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with math writer Shalma Wegsman about why water is exceptionally versatile under pressure. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.
Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's spring, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, so it feels like the perfect time to talk about ice, since it's more likely to be cooling our drinks than ruining our commutes for a while. |
| 0:15.0 | For all its familiarity, ice is a really odd substance. It floats one, because it's less dense than its liquid form. |
| 0:23.0 | It's not the only substance that does that, but there aren't very many. |
| 0:26.5 | We're not entirely sure why it's slippery, which was the subject of a quantistory not long ago, |
| 0:31.3 | and it comes in a bewildering array of forms, crystalline phases, they're called. |
| 0:36.3 | It's fascinating that we have this compound that covers most of the earth, infuses our |
| 0:41.0 | atmosphere, makes life possible, and we're still learning new things about it. |
| 0:53.0 | Welcome to the Quantum Podcast, where we explore the frontiers of fundamental science and math. |
| 0:57.1 | I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief of Quantum Magazine. |
| 1:01.3 | At the turn of the 20th century, there were 12 known phases of ice. |
| 1:05.8 | We are now, thanks to recently reported findings, getting close to double that, with some |
| 1:10.3 | wrinkles added to the forms |
| 1:11.8 | we already knew about. We reported on the most recent burst of new findings in this area in a |
| 1:16.9 | recent story called Physicists Discover the most complex forms of ice yet by the latest |
| 1:22.0 | addition to Kwanja's staff, math writer Shalma Weggsman, and she's here to talk us through it. |
| 1:26.3 | Welcome to the show, Shalma. Hi, thank you. So, Shalma,ggsman, and she's here to talk us through it. Welcome to the show, Shalma. |
| 1:35.4 | Hi, thank you. So Shalma, what's the big idea? The big idea is that we've been studying all the different forms of ice for over a century, and we keep finding new kinds of ice, and they keep |
| 1:41.0 | getting weirder, and all the simulations and theories suggest that we're going to keep finding more for as long as we look. |
| 1:48.3 | Obviously, we're going to get in this idea of what constitutes a form of ice and what's weird about ice. |
| 1:54.0 | But to get us there, I think we need a little water 101. |
| 1:58.3 | Let's just talk about the actual structure of water and how that contributes to what ice is. |
| 2:06.1 | Ice is just water in its solid form. |
... |
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