If you measure the temperature of a chunk of ice, you may find it to be –5° Celsius or so. If you take temperature readings while heating the ice in a pot on your stove, you find that the temperature of the ice begins to rise as the heat from the stove causes the ice particles to begin vibrating faster and faster.
After a while, some of the particles move so fast that they break free of the crystal lattice (which keeps a solid solid), and the lattice eventually breaks apart. The solid begins to go from a solid state to a liquid state — a process called melting. The temperature at which melting occurs is the melting point (mp) of the substance. The melting point for ice is 32° Fahrenheit, or 0° Celsius.
