Besides ice, is there any other solid on which we can skate?

Correct me if I’m wrong. Ice is just water in its solid state. So shouldn’t there be other solids that we can skate on? Or is it just because it’s so close to its liquid state that it’s still “wet”? Would we be able to skate on dry ice (solid carbon dioxide)?

There’s SuperIce - a polymer alternative.

And the only thing I know about “dry ice”: if you put a metal on it (like a heavy spoon) it squeals really, really loudly.

Yes, you can skate on this. I’ve seen it used once in a home where they had 4 children and they loved hockey…They were also in phoenix.

IIRC, you would not be able to skate on other solid surfaces. Ice is “just” water in it’s solid state, but water is very different from pretty much every other material out there. It has different physical properties, and does some really weird things that no other material does.

The reason you can skate on ice is because there is actually a thin layer of liquid water on top of the ice, which lets the blade of your skate glide along. Some people say that the water layer is formed by the increased pressure of your skate on the ice - contrary to other materials, higher pressure lowers the melting point (favours water) for water, but the calculations show that this isn’t the case simply because people aren’t heavy enough to be putting so much pressure as to make a difference. The other explanation is that the molecules on the surface of the ice are not in as organised a lattice as those inside the block/rink, and so are more free to move, and behave (are) liquid rather than solid. A certain amount of frictional heating from your skate blade may also contribute to the water layer on the rink surface.

Other materials don’t behave this way. Dry ice, for example, sublimates rather than melts (at least at any temperature you should be outdoors in!) and so you don’t have a layer of liquid CO2 to help you glide. Other solids, such as steel, have melting points too high, and they way they are formed makes it unlikely to have a layer of liquid on the surface.

I might be missing some details in the explanation, but basically, it comes down to the bizarre properties of water.

Mnemosyne, after reading your various theories, I kind of like the pressure theory. By no means am I a physicist, but it just seems to make most sense. This is because with skates, you have control in making turns and in stopping. If the thin layer of water theory holds, there would never be a solid against which a sharp turn could be made. But if the pressure from the blade causes only the ice below it to melt, then the still-solid ice around the blade can be used by the blade to push against in order to turn, or stop. Interesting. I’m glad I asked the question.

Oh, there’s a thin layer of water there, alright, but it’s mostly friction that’s responsible for it. I actually did this calculation when I was taking thermodynamics in college, and the result was that in order to apply enough pressure to change the freezing point of water by about 5 degrees Celsius, you’d either have to weigh as much as an African elephant or have skates the width of a white blood cell.

Regardless of the reason for the thin layer of water, a small region of ice melts, resulting in a slight surface depression - the blade sits in a groove, making turning possible.

Well, that and the corners of the blades digging in - ordinary ice skates aren’t sharpened to an edge - they have a square profile and I speak from experience when I say that on freshly smoothed ice, it is possible for the blades to slip sideways - only when you lean a little do the corners of the blade dig into the surface and get proper grip to turn.

      • Maybe a giant sheet of frozen butter? -But the water component would still be what made it work, I suppose…
        ~

What about frozen milk?

For training I’ve used this skating treadmill.

They used this stuff (or something like it) on an episode of Monster House and it was pretty impressive. They cut it to fit in someone’s living room and gave them an indoor skating rink and used what look like real skates on it.

Keep in mind I’ve never ice skated, but it looked cool to me.