Some of the most beautiful and impressive ice sculptures you have ever seen are included here, as well as some interesting and unexpected facts about the cold stuff. So, we may ask after seeing this dazzling objects, who need stone when you have The Cold Stuff?

Not-So-Forbidden City

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Harbin in China, above, hosts a spectacular ice festival each year. As we saw at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony, when the Chinese choose to do something big, they go for it.

There are no less than 15 types of ice, otherwise known as crystalline solid phases. You can have hail, icicles, glaciers and snowflakes to name but a few. They all have very specific scientific names, but you will have to read to the end to find out what they are!

Man or Alien?

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The above is somewhat a mystery, but have you ever wondered where the word ice comes from? It is from the Old English – “is”. That word was formed from the Proto-Germanic language even earlier – their word was “isaz”.

And Then All My Clothes Fell Off…

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The above image is from the Ice Magic Festival in Calgary, Canada. The theme was “Snow Queen, Ice Fairies and the Enchanted Forest” and surely enough, it produced some enchanting work. The above is larger than life size and was carved from a block of ice weighing three hundred pounds!

Anyone for Dinner?

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The Russians get in on the act too and in typically European style to boot! The above sculpture appeared at an ice carving competition in Khabarovsk and is an abstract representation of a couple enjoying a candle lit dinner.

Bear-Faced Fun

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When is ice not ice? When it occurs naturally as a crystalline solid it is then scientifically approached as a mineral consisting of hydrogen oxide.

Tip of the Tree

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When water is frozen at a pressure of one atmosphere, it develops a rather unusual property. It becomes around eight percent less dense than water. This is because the hydrogen bonds that form between water molecules when ice forms do it far less efficiently than when it is liquid. In other words, they don’t work as well in the cold. As a result something happens that we all know about – ice floats!

Ice Angel

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Sweden is cold, that’s an established fact. The ice in the Kiruna district is some of the clearest and hardest in the world. It has these properties, important in the creation of ice sculptures, because it literally comes out of moving water. Such is the hardness of the local ice that whole buildings that stand for months can be made out of it.

Donkey

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It is a fortunate thing that ice floats. As well as being extremely important in creating and maintaining our climate (which is why so many people worry about the ice caps melting!) picture the alternative. If ice actually sank rather than floated, seas, lakes and ponds would become frozen from the bottom up. This would push fish and other watery denizens to the top, and kill them!

Melty Mousey

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We all have preconceptions about ice and who can blame us? After all, it’s ice! When it melts, however, the energy it absorbs is the same amount that it would take to heat your kettle to four fifths of boiling point. The ice, though, remains at a constant zero degrees centigrade. Go figure, as our American friends say.

Gone Fishing

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It gets weirder. Scientists have proven that ice can be superheated past its melting point without melting. Of course, this is for very short periods of time but ice can actually be at room temperature and stay solid. Yes, exactly!

Lost in Thought

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Why is ice slippery? You may well have thought that it was because a thin layer of the substance would melt when an object is place on it with some pressure – such as an ice skate. The pressure exerted on the ice gives lubrication between the ice and the blade and the ice is slippery. Right? Possibly not!

Whoa There!

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Scientists think that the real reason ice is slippery is all down to molecules again. It is thought that the molecules of ice that are exposed to air move like liquid water because they are unable to bond sufficiently well with the molecules below. As they are semi-liquid they provide lubrication and would do so whether there was any pressure exerted on them or not!

Get the Point?

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If only it was that cut and dry! With ice there always seems to be an exception that doesn’t prove the rule. Explorers in Antarctica have a hard enough job to start with but one thing they have observed is that when the weather becomes even more extreme than usual something happens to the ice. It seems to lose its slippery properties altogether and means that sleds loose their slide. The ice becomes, effectively, like sand. No wonder Scott perished!

Dragon Ice

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Ice cools and those of us lucky to live in developed countries take it for granted that we can shuffle to the refrigerator and pop a few cubes in our soda. It wasn’t always like that. Until electricity and artificial freezing came along, ice had to be stored in specially made ice-houses that would make it available all year round.

Fantasy Castle

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Your great-great-grandparents would, if they were still alive, be able to tell you about ice deliveries. Most large cities in the nineteenth century had ice services which would deliver the stuff during the hot summer months. They would be delivered in specially insulated horse drawn wagons.

Thoughtful Maiden

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We always like to think we got there first in the west, but people have been storing ice way before the Victorians thought they thought it up. Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Persians (modern day Iranians) had already mastered the ice storing technique, and what’s more, they did it in the middle of the desert! Their underground storage facilities were lined with a mixture of all sorts of things which together were resistant to heat transfer. However, the ice was only available if you were royal, so expensive was it to maintain.

Iced Biker

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Ice can be turned to all sorts of uses. In Antarctica in 1976, engineers constructed an ice pier. It was easily strong enough to be used for several years to load and unload cargo.

Angel Wing

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Ice can lead to a food eating disorder. Pagophagia is the name of the condition for someone who compulsively eats ice. It is thought, however, that it is the result rather than the cause of nutritional deficiency. Those suffering from Pagophagia eat ice in an attempt to get more iron in to their system.

Massive Structure

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This picture looks as if it is plate-sized pieces of ice until you look closer and notice the lights at the base. Naturally, of course, huge ice sheets form in many places. In 1658, the Swedish army was able to walk across the frozen straits separating their country from Denmark and thrash the Danish army.

Getting Horny

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Ice as a meteor? The largest piece of ice ever to fall on our little blue planet was six meters across. It fell in Scotland in 1849. No one was killed. Pity the poor Bangladeshi people caught up in a hailstorm in April 1986. The largest hailstone recorded that day was over a kilo in weight. 92 people died.

Something Fishy

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The names of all those different types of ice? With a startling lack of imagination, the first type is called Ice I. Then, you guessed it; the 15 types are labeled in Roman numerals all the way up to Ice XV. Pretty Imaginative, huh?

Time to Go

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Oh yes. It melts.