Frozen water can take on up to three forms at the same time when it melts: liquid, ice and gas. This principle, which states that many substances can occur in up to three phases simultaneously, was ...

Five different phases of a colloid-polymer mixture can co-exist at the same time, in defiance of the 150-year-old Gibbs phase rule, which states that only three simultaneous phases are possible. The ...

Today, researchers are defying a classical theory from American physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, with proof of a five-phase equilibrium, something that many scholars considered impossible. Frozen water ...