Ireen Wüst, Renate Groenewold and Jorien Voorhuis competing in 2009. A team pursuit race can damage the skating rink considerably - but does the ice heal itself? Image via Wikipedia (adrian8_8) CC-BY-2.0.
Ireen Wüst, Renate Groenewold and Jorien Voorhuis competing in 2009. A team pursuit race can damage the skating rink considerably - but does the ice heal itself? Image via Wikipedia (adrian8_8) CC-BY-2. The Winter Olympics in Beijing are under way. Dutch athletes are hoping to win many medals, especially in skating events. To improve the performance of the athletes, big ice resurfacers smoothen the ice rink in between races. The question is: is that really necessary? To some extent it's not: scientists from the Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam have shown that ice, when left alone for long enough, can heal itself. More than 160 years ago, a similar effect to what happens on a speed skating rink attracted the attention of physicist Michael Faraday.
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