Ice

Ice is a translucent solid block formed in snowy Biomes (formerly winter worlds) from exposed water, and is slightly slippery. As of weekly snapshot 12w17a, ice blocks can be obtained using any tool with the silk touch enchantment.

Ice can be easily destroyed without tools, but the use of a pickaxe speeds up the process. If there is another block directly underneath the ice block, it will revert back to water when broken. If not, it will shatter without producing water. Due to its transparency, ice cannot have Torches placed on it directly.

Ice will also melt into water if the light level immediately next to it on any side is sufficiently high (greater than 11), from light sources other than sunlight. Conversely, a water block in a snowy biome will eventually freeze into ice if exposed to the sky from directly above, and the light level immediately adjacent to the water block on all sides is sufficiently low (less than 13). This can happen at any time of day, and in any weather condition. If the highest adjacent light level is 12, an ice block will alternately melt and re-freeze when it receives a block tick.

Items and broken blocks move extremely fast when in water that is flowing over ice. This is particularly useful for transporting resources using water currents because items will keep sliding on ice blocks when they are dropped at an angle, even if water is not placed on top.

Potential uses

 * The repeated thawing and freezing at light level 12 can be used to make a redstone noise generator. Use a BUD to catch the random events.
 * If creating a water slide, ice blocks can be used as the bottom pieces of the slide to speed up item movement.
 * Because items exiting a water flow will continue to slide on up to two blocks on ice, sequences of flowing water over ice can be used to transport items indefinitely with no vertical drop necessary.
 * Items that exit water flowing over ice can slide up to nine blocks on ice.
 * The player can use Silk Touch to collect ice blocks and place them in the Nether. However, they don't make water when broken or melted.
 * Making a 2-block high hallway with an ice floor, and trapdoors above the ice then sprint-jumping down it causes the fastest possible speed in the game. However, this will rapidly deplete the player's hunger bar.
 * The player can build structures with ice in a tundra biome by putting dirt (or any other blocks) around the walls that will be built. After the player lays out one level of dirt, the player can pour water into the layout with buckets until all blocks have become ice. After this, make another level and repeat. There should be no blocks anywhere above the block of water the player wants to freeze, since water will not freeze with blocks directly above it.
 * When placed on ice, Cobweb's & Soul Sand's slowing effect will be greatly increased. This makes it helpful for live capture traps.
 * Ice can be used as a stackable water source.
 * The player can build structures with ice floor so items slip from 6-8 blocks away when thrown, this can be used to play "mini golf" by throwing items and trying to get them into a specific block, such as holes or any other block different than ice.
 * Ice blocks behind other ice blocks are invisible. This makes for a great ice maze. Other items that dont show behind ice are water and lava. However, if lava is one block away from the ice, the ice will melt into a water block

Farming Ice
Since Minecraft 1.3, Ice can now legitimately be obtained in survival mode, with a Silk Touch enchanted pickaxe. That being said, farming ice can now be done if a contraption is made in that it can constantly create infinite water sources. This would have to be done in a snow biome in order for the ice to replace the water source blocks.

Bugs

 * Lakes can spawn inside of oceans, causing a frozen ocean to have "craters" of ice.
 * It is possible to create a single block of non-flowing water by melting ice, even when there are no surrounding blocks. As soon as a surrounding block is changed, such as adding or mining a block, or placing items like torches, the water will start flowing. Examples: ,
 * If a partial block like a cake or a single slab is placed on an ice block, that block gains the slippery property of the ice block below it.
 * Using ice, it is possible to have a water source block directly above a fire block. By placing Netherrack below any solid block and an ice block above said block, then destroying the middle block and setting the Netherrack on fire, the ice will melt and float above the fire.
 * If a player creates a world that lacks ice in a given spot, and then updates their game to a newer version, ice will form over the spot if the same coordinates would be within a cold biome after the update (when using the same seed). The forming ice will appear to spread across bodies of water because each ice block that forms in the water updates the surrounding water blocks.
 * In some worlds, with outdated world generation, biomes that were previously not snowy (or even deserts) can sometimes begin to have all water source blocks converted into ice. Conversely, previously icy biomes can become non-icy, so snow will not re-generate and water will not freeze.
 * When you look at ice that has been placed on the surface of water, you cannot see it.

Trivia

 * If a player rides a pig on ice using a saddle, the pig moves incredibly fast, making journeys across long frozen lakes easier.
 * By sprinting and jumping while on ice and inside a 2-block tall tunnel, it is possible to move 16 blocks a second, twice as fast as a full-speed minecart. By replacing the 2-block ceiling with trapdoors, it's possible to travel 1000 blocks in 54 seconds, or 18.518 blocks per second. However, this will drain the player's hunger bar extremely quickly at roughly 1 unit per second.
 * Ice isn't as translucent as glass, so light passes through ice blocks diffusely, reducing the light level by 2 per ice block.
 * Ice doesn't look transparent in the inventory or when your character holds it but will look translucent when placed.
 * Along with Portals and Water, Ice is one of the few blocks that uses translucent pixels (colored but still semi-transparent) in the default Minecraft texture pack.
 * If viewed through a portal, ice is invisible and the ground beneath it can be seen.
 * Although it is seemingly translucent, water cannot be seen through ice, nor can other ice blocks. The same thing happens when ice is placed with lava. This only occurs with blocks in close vicinity unlike water where the ice can be any distance from it.
 * It is possible to see the edges of chunks through ice, but only in "Fast" graphics setting.
 * Sugar cane can be found next to ice, though when updated they will drop as items. This can be observed at random when running through a snowy biome.
 * If you try to light ice on fire with a flint and steel no flames will appear, but the flint and steel will still act as if it had been used (its durability will decrease slightly). The same thing happens with glass.
 * If an ocean biome is beside a snow biome, "ice shelves" may be formed.
 * If the user is playing on a non-snow Alpha map generated before the Halloween update, as of 1.6, oceans may freeze over because of ice regeneration in the newly generated snow biomes.
 * Water can only freeze if there is at least one horizontally adjacent non-water block. This makes ponds, rivers, etc. freeze from the edges in to the middle.
 * Ice is not transparent in Pocket Edition.

Gallery
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