Distilled water produced an unrippled, carrot-shaped icicle. When the
scientists added a pinch of sodium chloride, or table salt, regularly
spaced ripples formed. When they added more, the ripples became wildly
irregular.
The researchers have not been able to find a theory to
explain why salt is crucial to ripple formation. Fortunately, nature
doesn’t need a theory; the team found that water running off Toronto
roofs had enough dissolved ions to make ripples on its own.
From a study published in the
New Journal of Physics,
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