Ice isn't slippery because it melts into water—it's actually because friction creates a weird heat that bypasses melting altogether.
arXiv · March 13, 2026 · 2603.11539
Why it matters
For over 150 years, the leading theory was that a thin layer of liquid water makes ice slippery. This study uses nanoscale simulations to show that frictional heating allows surfaces to slide over ice without needing to turn it into a liquid, solving a long-standing mystery in physics.
From the abstract
The origin of ice's slipperiness has long puzzled scientists. To resolve this question, we simulate ice- glass (amorphous silica) friction at the nanoscale from first principles and upscale to the macroscale using a frictional heating model. We find that nanoscale simulations alone cannot capture the correct velocity dependence of ice friction, resulting in an overestimated coefficient of friction. By properly accounting for frictional heating, we find a strong increase in contact temperature to