10-27-2017, 03:59 PM
(10-27-2017, 03:54 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I don’t mean the whole block turns to water, although that would be a cool effect in a video game. Imagine a lump of ice on the track being run over by a train. To the extent the whole lump doesn’t just go flying off but actually gets run over, what will happen to it? It’s not going to divert the train upward from its path measurably; instead any ice trapped under the wheel will either be reduced to a fine powder or, I suspect, actually turn into a liquid. I just remembered that the reason skates work is because the weight of the person using them turns a tiny amount of the ice under the blade into liquid, so the weight of a train will definitely have that effect on any ice stuck under the wheels.