the.com/melting
the moment a solid stops pretending it isn't secretly a liquid
means the process of a solid turning to liquid under heat, or figuratively softening, dissolving, or losing composure.
from From Old English 'meltan,' meaning to dissolve or digest, with roots in a Proto-Germanic word for becoming soft or liquid. It's a distant cousin of words across other Indo-European tongues tied to softening and grinding down — the same deep root that possibly gives us 'mild' and 'mild'-mannered things that yield rather than resist.
- gallium party trick
- Melts in your warm hand like metal butter
- ice exception
- It shrinks while melting, defying nearly everything else
- glass myth
- Old windowpanes are not slowly melting downward
- helium refuses
- Stays liquid at absolute zero without melting from solid
- pressure cheat
- Squeezing can melt ice without adding any heat
greenland ice sheet — losing ~280 billion tons of ice per year as of 2020s, major sea level rise contributor
west antarctic ice sheet — accelerating collapse since 2014, could raise sea levels 3+ meters if fully melted
permafrost thaw siberia — releasing methane since 2000s across russia's frozen tundra, amplifying climate feedback