#676 – Titanic

I was washing dishes the first time I noticed that moving water could cut through ice. There was a glass with some ice left in it from dinner. I was shocked at how fast running water would melt it even though it wasn’t hot. I got more cubes out of the freezer and spent an hour at the sink experimenting. I made all kinds of shapes and tunnels. The fun came to an end when my dad went to get a drink and there was only a single cube left in the tray.

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28 thoughts on “#676 – Titanic”

  1. dragoonbloodrain says:

    I remember doing that as a kid too. Man did my parents get mad that I used every ice cube in that “experiment.”

  2. reynard61 says:

    Superhero Fantasy week?

  3. Vertro says:

    Super hero, reality week?

  4. MadDavid says:

    Rofl, Vertro. Deffinitely a “pretending to be a superhero when facing ordinary tasks” week.

  5. Nah, I’d say “Kid’s imagination + food” week. Spaghetti was slayed monster, water is lazer eyes. Tomorrow, ravioli is turtles, hiding in a cave that happens to be his mouth. Or, something more imaginative.

  6. Dan says:

    Actually cold water melts ice faster than hot water from what i understand. Even though the temperature difference is smaller its still enough to melt it, and because the water molecules are closer together and moving less rapidly, they actually spend more time in contact with the ice, causing it to melt faster or something…. I could be wrong. look it up, a scientist would know better than me most likely.

  7. Matthew says:

    @Dan: It would make sense since hot water freezes faster than cold water. No scientists have ever properly researched the fact, but it is supposed to be because of how fast the molecules move in the state.

    With freezing it’s supposedly because the warm water pushes the cold water to the centre, so that new warm water gets to the cold air, thus creating a fast even freeze, whereas cold water doesn’t exchange their spots much.

  8. Otter says:

    @matthew acctualy me and my family ran that experiment cold water froze faster anyway yay biff make another dull and painful day of carpet cleaning fun for me

  9. Bill says:

    Matt, it’s not that it pushes the cold water to the center, but down (as in a convection current), in the case of your freezer to the bottom of your ice cube tray. Then what’s left on top is exposed to the air, to repeat the cycle.

  10. Reaper says:

    First time reader, just found your website last night. Instead of doing my homework like a good boy, I read your whole damn comic. I love this thing, man. It’s original, and unique.

  11. MaskedMan says:

    Walter Mitty week… Superheros as the fantasies du jour.

  12. DTanza says:

    Heh yeah i1ve done that *experiment before*

    Still do it.

    Then again i`m 13 but still.

  13. Manfred says:

    I remember that I would sometimes get ice with my milk just so I could hear the ice cracking as the milk poured in. Surprisingly satisfying.

  14. Chris says:

    @Manfred – My favorite was when the ice would freeze to the bottom of the glass and then pop up to the top a few minutes later.

  15. TheWhite says:

    I use the same water thing for cleaning the freezer, Hot water in a squirty bottle and spray it on the top of the ice then wait untill it just falls of =) added bonus is you have a huge block of ice left to play with ^.^

  16. Rook says:

    On the Super-Hero train of thought; I used to stuff my cheeks with ice-cubes when I was young and run around the house exhaling puffs of fog and blowing on various glass objects, pretending I held the power to control ice and such. To this day, I’m endlessly entertained by blowing into a cup of ice-water to create fog.

  17. Jackson says:

    Biff may be an ice-melting hero, but my brother and I were supervillains when it came to ice. We would freeze our action figures in ice blocks, melt out their feet, and hang them up by their ankles with string to thaw out slowly. Eventually our mom made us stop, out of fear that we would grow up to be disturbed serial torturers.

    Rook’s comment reminds me of how my dad would set his coffee on the car dashboard while filling up the gas tank, and the coffee would make a steam spot on the windshield. Dad would give it eyes and a mouth and call it the Coffee Ghost.

  18. ZackDark says:

    hehe, I was going through your archive and noticed you already said you used to cut cubes like this

    http://www.thebookofbiff.com/2007/05/29/256-cube/

    Funny how I notice those completely useless things, huh?

  19. Chris says:

    @ZackDark – Haha. Yeah I have a finite amount of childhood anecdotes to mine. Hopefully I won’t contradict myself too much. 🙂

  20. ZackDark says:

    Another (incredibly not) fun fact:
    That comic was also the 2-by-the-power-of-8-th comic

  21. Wizard says:

    For a challenge, try using the faucet to weld two ice cubes together.

  22. ZackDark says:

    @Wizard: I shall consider that a challenge.
    @ Chris: Just finished reading through all the panels
    You officially have the awesomest one-panel comic ever IMO.
    Congrats 🙂

  23. alecho says:

    hahahahahaha! niiiice! Biff saves the day fo so!

  24. Akaroshii says:

    xD I’ve done that before. It was fun watching it melt. :3

  25. Dartigen says:

    The best one? Get an ice cube, drop some salt on the top, and let a piece of string rest hwere you’ve left the salt. After 2-3 minutes, you can lift it up by the string. I would runa round the house swinging m icecube on string…well, at least until one day it flew off into someone’s face. I still love crunching ice though, especially when you bite it just right and instead of crunching it squeaks and gets denser.

  26. Nate says:

    found this today off of a dueling analogs link, and spent around two hours going back and reading every one. this is by far one of the funniest comics to date i’ve read. keep up the great work 😀

  27. Haywire says:

    Oh wow, I used to love doing this. Took me a while to figure out that cold water worked too.

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