Look up certificate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Certificate may refer to:

• Public key certificate, an electronic document used in cryptography
• Certificate of deposit, or CD, a financial product commonly offered to consumers by banks, thrift institutions, and credit unions
• Certificate (complexity), a string that certifies the answer to a computation
• Medical certificate

Official document[link]

• Birth certificate
• Marriage certificate
• Stock certificate
• Death certificate

Academic qualification[link]

• Academic certificate
• Professional certification, a vocational award
• A confirmation that a person has passed a Test (assessment) to prove competence

Australia

• Higher School Certificate (New South Wales), a school qualification in New South Wales, Australia
• Victorian Certificate of Education, a school qualification in Victoria, Australia
• Technical and further education#Qualifications awarded by TAFE colleges, a qualification offered by an education institution in Australia

Ireland

• Junior Certificate, a qualification attained by school students
• Irish Leaving Certificate, a higher qualification attained by school students
• National Certificate, an older higher education qualification
• Higher Certificate, a newer higher education qualification

Hong Kong

• Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination

United Kingdom

• Certificate of Higher Education, awarded after one year full-time study at a university or other higher education institution

See also[link]

• Certification
• Academic degree
• Motion picture rating system

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Ice cubes in a glass of iced tea

Ice cubes are small, roughly cube-shaped pieces of ice, conventionally used to cool beverages. Ice cubes are sometimes preferred over crushed ice because they melt more slowly; they are standard in mixed drinks that call for ice, in which case the drink is said to be "on the rocks."

Ice cubes that are crushed or sheared into irregularly-shaped flakes may add an interesting aesthetic effect to some cocktails. Crushed ice is also used when faster cooling is desired, since the rate of cooling is governed by the number and average radius of the ice particles.^[1]

Melting ice cubes sometimes precipitate white flakes, commonly known as "floaties". This is calcium carbonate which is present in many water supplies and is completely harmless.^{[citation needed]}

Origin[link]

Gorrie's ice machine.

American physician and humanitarian John Gorrie built a refrigerator in 1844 with the purpose of cooling air. His refrigerator produced ice which he hung from the ceiling in a basin. Gorrie can be considered the creator of ice cubes, but his aim was not to cool drinks: he used the ice to lower the ambient room temperature. During his time, a dominant idea was that bad air quality caused disease. Therefore, in order to help treat sickness, he pushed for the draining of swamps and the cooling of sickrooms.

Methods of production[link]

Ice cubes are produced domestically by filling an ice cube tray with water and placing it in a freezer. Many freezers also come equipped with an icemaker, which produces ice cubes automatically and stores them in a bin from which they can be dispensed directly into a glass.

Ice cube tray[link]

Ice cubes in a tray

Ice cube trays are designed to be filled with water, then placed in a freezer until the water freezes to ice, producing ice cubes. Trays are often flexible, so the frozen cubes can be easily removed by flexing the tray. Twist ice trays have a simple spring loaded mechanism with a lever that is used to turn the tray upside down and flex at the same time such that the cubes drop are collected in a removable tray below and return the ice cube tray to its upright position without removing it from the freezer which can save time and reduces accidents and mess, though the tray has to be removed to be collected and the ice cube tray still has to be removed to be refilled. An alternative system is an aluminum tray with a lever that raises the ice cubes, freeing them from the tray. A motorized version of this is found in most automatic ice-making freezers.

While the usual shape of the ice 'cube' is roughly cubical, there are trays that dispense hemispherical or cylindrical blocks. These are commonly referred to as ice tubes. Some novelty trays produce blocks of ice in seasonal, festive or other shapes.

The first rubber ice cube tray was invented by Lloyd Groff Copeman. One day in 1928, while walking through some woods collecting sap for maple syrup, Copeman noticed that slush and ice flaked off his rubber boots rather than adhering to them. Having recalled this incident over lunch with his patent attorney, he conducted experiments using rubber cups. Later, he set about designing and then patenting different types of tray: a metal tray with rubber separators, a metal tray with individual rubber cups, and a tray made completely of rubber.^[2]

The first flexible stainless steel, all-metal ice cube tray was created by Guy L. Tinkham in 1933. The tray bent sideways to remove the ice cubes.

Several companies now offer pre-filled disposable ice trays for home freezing, which they claim provide better taste and reduced risk of contamination.^[3]

Large-scale ice cube production[link]

Dedicated ice-maker machines can be used to produce ice cubes for laboratories and academic use. Ice cubes are also produced commercially and sold in bulk; these ice cubes, despite their name, are often cylindrical, and may have holes through the center.

An interesting characteristic of commercially made ice cubes is that they are completely clear, lacking the clouding found in the center of domestically made ice cubes. Cloudy ice cubes result when water is frozen quickly, or when the water is high in dissolved solids. When water is cooled to its freezing point, and ice starts to form, dissolved gases can no longer stay in solution and come out as microscopic bubbles. However, as ice floats in water, once there is enough ice to form a layer on the surface, the ice layer traps all bubbles within the ice cube. Commercial ice-makers use a flowing source of purified water to make ice with cooling elements at the bottom, allowing the bubbles to be washed away from the top as the cube grows.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision of the "Ice cube" article dated 2006-05-10, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

More spoken articles

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ice cubes

• Ice pack
• Pagophagia
• Refrigeration
• Ice

References[link]

1. ^ Rauch, Jeffrey (1975). "The mathematical theory of crushed ice". Partial differential equations and related topics (Program, Tulane Univ., New Orleans, La., 1974). Berlin, New York (the state): Springer-Verlag. pp. 370–379. MR0427863. 
2. ^ "www.lloydcopeman.com: Biography". http://www.lloydcopeman.com/biography/CopemanStory.pdf. 
3. ^ "After Bottled Water? Purified Ice Cubes". http://www.aquaice.com/PressRelease_WSJ_2006.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-03. 

External links[link]

Look up ice cube in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Hot water can freeze faster than cold water (Subscription required)

Richard Mack
Mack in downtown Phoenix, Arizona in January 2011.
Born	Richard Ivan Mack 1952 (age 59–60) Arizona
Occupation	Author, activist

Richard Ivan Mack is a Republican candidate for election to the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 21st Congressional district, the former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona (because of this he is frequently referred to simply as "Sheriff Mack").

[edit] 2012 House election campaign

Richard Mack is opposing 13-term Representative Lamar Smith, who introduced and sponsored the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act legislation, in the 2012 Republican primary for Texas's 21st Congressional district, with the primary winner to run against the Democratic candidate in the general election.

Personal Life[link]

Richard Mack was born in 1952^[1] in Arizona.^[2]

Law Enforcement experience[link]

Mack spent 11 years with the Provo, Utah Police Department and then moved back to Arizona to run for Graham County Sheriff in 1988. While serving as sheriff he received an invitation to attend the FBI National Academy and graduated in 1992. In 1994, he was named Elected Official of the Year by the Arizona-New Mexico Coalition of Counties and was inducted into the NRA Hall of Fame being named NRA Law Enforcement Officer of the Year.^[3]

Successful lawsuit against the federal government over the Brady bill[link]

Mack received national attention in Mack v. United States (later restyled to Printz v. United States) in his tenure as a local sheriff for opposition to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act on the basis that it is unconstitutional due to congressional action to compel state officers to execute Federal law. ^[4] The portion of the Brady law mandating local sheriffs perform background checks was declared to be unconstitutional by the U.S. supreme court.

Other Activism[link]

In 2009, Mack appeared in interviews on a cable public access show^[5] and a one-person website^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} where he discussed his membership in Oath Keepers and the importance of the police and military in upholding their oaths to the U.S. Constitution.

In 2011 Sheriff Mack announced a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center for libel, slander, and defamation.^[12]

Richard Mack was the Libertarian candidate for United States Senate election in Arizona, 2006. He is also a member of the Oath Keepers.

He currently speaks at seminars "on constitutional issues relating to gun control, law enforcement, States' rights, the farce, otherwise known as the drug war, and the oath of office."^[13]

Bibliography[link]

Mack has authored several books relating to gun laws, ownership and the role that law enforcement should play in America.

• The County Sheriff America's Last Hope
• The Proper Role of Law Enforcement
• From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns with Timothy Robert Walters (1994)
• THE NAKED SPY: His Mission Began the Day He Died (2005)
• The MAGIC of Gun Control (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

Richard Mack's official website

Richard Mack's official 2012 campaign website

[1] <Sheriff Mack For Congress Facebook Page

[2] <Twitter Account