Birbla

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • Nice of the iceberg to float into frame before decided to do it's gymnastics routine.
    by Jeremy1026
  • I would have described flipping it over before collapsing. The title seems a clickbait, but is no quite that. Keep in mind that most of the iceberg is off camera, as shown during the first minutes. It lost 80% or 90% of its total mass but most of it isn't seen until the end, when the iceberg goes back to the right.
    by catlikesshrimp
  • It stops first? Maybe the bottom hit the seafloor?
    by thisisauserid
  • That's what I thought too. The sudden stop is actually two phenomenon compounded. One, the mountain of ice contacts bottom. Two, the video speed changes from ~8x to 1x.
    by dotancohen
  • One of the comments said just that. "Grounded near disko bay" iirc.

    Another comment said that icebergs melt blow water faster than in the air and that flipping is a fairly common thing to do because the center of gravity changes.

    by readthenotes1
  • Not saying its fake, just that what I see surprises me: ice is only slightly lighter than fresh or sea water, so vaguely only 10% of ice mass is above surface level; when it "flips" multiple times, it just seems like 50% of the ice is above water as if the other supporting 80% helping it float that high are totally missing...
    by DoctorOetker
  • A fun game to draw your own iceberg: https://joshdata.me/iceberger.html

    First seen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26201160

    by quercusa
  • I felt like watching a big animal moving
    by hk__2
  • It floated into frame like a t-rex on its belly.
    by therealdrag0
  • Yeah there were parts that were so organic it looked alive. I was imagining the folks at Toho taking detailed notes.
    by troyvit
  • Anyone who enjoys that video (I did!) should watch the largest glacier calving ever recorded: https://youtu.be/hC3VTgIPoGU
    by xnx
  • Crazy how the most liked comment under the video as of now discusses AI video generation
    by eamag
  • Especially as physics-oriented and long videos are exactly the kinds that are easiest to figure if they're AI.

    Artificial Intelligence isn't the issue. Natural Stupidity is.

    by maxlin
  • The music also gets talked about quite a bit.

    My immediate reaction to a "what is with this loud music, I can barely hear the actual audio" comment on YouTube was to assume the channel was afraid of being copystruck by the iceberg's lawyers.

    by saalweachter
  • Surprised the bottom of the iceberg crumbled so easily (like sand) at 4m 16s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UufMqwyO7pY&t=4m16s

    I'd have assumed it would be colder and more compacted (being toward the bottom and further under water), and therefore harder.

    by nomilk
  • My take would be that underwater temps cannot get below freezing. So the surrounding temperatures above water can be lower than under water.
    by FromHoiPolloi
  • There are different ways to create an iceberg. You are probably thinking of a hard chunk of ice breaking off into the ocean, but probably a more common way is glaciers running into the ocean. A glacier is basically a "river" of snow and ice slowly flowing down a mountain. It would generally not be very compacted.

    Fun fact: smaller chunks (less than 15m) are called "bergy bits".

    by brianpan
  • How cold is cold? :-)

    Water below ”sea” level tends to stay around -1C (salt water) to 4C. Below that, water becomes ice…

    Ambient temperature can drop to -40C … internally these ice blocks hoover around -10C.

    by amszmidt
  • I would have thought it would generate enormous wave, but that's clearly not the case. I think some of the biggest waves was generated by a mountain sliding or collapsing in the sea. I expected something similar here. Anyone know why not?
    by raphinou
  • i suppose its not actually displacing a lot of water volume, unlike a landslide.
    by javier2
  • Maybe because ice floats, and it's almost the same density as water?
    by dist-epoch
  • All its mass is already on the water so it's not displacing anything. It probably made some splashes but it seems like a fairly round object rotating rather than smashing into anything
    by staplers
  • The amount of water actually being displaced isn't changing much, it's just kind of rearranging around where is water and where is ice.
    by cucumber3732842
  • It is not a very energetic event for its size. The iceberg is floating, it can't accumulate a lot of potential energy before flipping, so when it happens, there is not enough to make big waves. The center of gravity of the iceberg barely moves.

    A mountain sliding into the sea is different, these higher up rocks have a lot of potential energy, that convert into kinetic energy as they fall, which is transferred to the water as they splash down, making big waves.

    by GuB-42
  • Massive appreciation for whoever adjusted the position of the camera at 7:23 (3:18 in video)
    by joshuat
  • Beautiful and scary at the same time. Almost like the iceberg was a planet on its own with mountains, valleys, crevices. Then everything goes haywire. The fall of a majestic titan. The destruction of a world.
    by atbpaca
  • In short, a titanic event...
    by GuB-42
  • There’s also something very organic about it. I had to keep reminding myself that it’s “just ice” and not a living being.
    by baubino