Why does ice's density lower than water and it has bigger volume than water?Why doesn't it contract when cool?

Question

Metals(Solid) contracts when it cools, but ice's(solid) volume is bigger than water. Why is it so strange?

Answer 1

Ice expands during the freezing process by blending with air.. but when frozen it is one of the very few things that goes through a process called sublimination .. straight to vapor form from solid without being a liquid in between.. this is why ice cubes shrink over time when left in the freezer for long periods.. pretty cool stuff
.. damn, I actually remembered something from high school .. haaa

Answer 2

The reason why ice has a bigger volume en lower density it's because it's mass doesn't change.
Remember: D=M/V

The reason why the ice doesn't contract when cool it's because the that water molecules arrange to form regular crystal structures (ice).
The way they need to be arranged to form ice occupies more space than normal water, thus it has a bigger volume but it mass remains the same. And therefore it has a lower density.

Answer 3

you're good: beverages often DO have a decrease density than solids. Water/ice is between the uncommon exceptions. Ice has a crystalline hexagonal variety that takes up extra area than water molecules do. (apparently adequate, that's the comparable reason that snowflakes are all six-sided.) Water is truly its densest at 3 levels Celsius, basically above the freezing factor. This makes the bottoms of maximum deep bodies of sparkling water (e.g., the great Lakes) 3 levels all year around.

Answer 4

I'm not quite sure I understand the question.

BUT
Ice is the solid form of water, as we all know. Water molecules are held together by cohesion and often bump and move about. However, in its solid form (ice) hydrogen bonding occurs between the water molecules, therefore generating a less dense compound than water. To put it simply, in its solid form, hydrogen bonds keep the water molecules in assigned places, spacing them farther apart than in liquid form-when the molecules are in constant contact and are very close to each other.
Hence, ice occupies more volume because it has more spaces than water. Consequently, ice is less dense and floats in drinks, rather than sinks. (Also applicable to glaciers- there is water underneath the glaciers)

Answer 5

Water is very odd that way. It all has to do with the crystal structure it forms when freezing. The lattice the crystals form have a lot of empty space in them.

Answer 6

if i understand your question correctly:
as water gets colder and freezes, its molecules connect from the random motion that they are in in the liquid state, into a neat, ordered, "crystal latice". when they connect in the crystal latice they sort of space out and get farther apart from each other than they were while bumping around into each other in the liquid state.
does that make sense?

Answer 7

Water expands when it freezes simply because air molecules surround the water molecules

Answer 8

Magic--and it's good because otherwise ice would sink to the bottom of the ocean.