Tanya- It does. You can see that a few ways. Ice cubes float, which
means that like other things that float they are less dense than water.
In other words they have less mass per volume, or more volume per mass.
You may have also noticed that water in cans or bottle can break the
bottle or stretch out the can if you accidentally leave them in the
freezer.
It's more typical for liquids to shrink when they freeeze.
Water that's very close to the freezing temperature (below about 4
deg Celsius) also expands when it's cooled- the opposite of most
materials.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
