Here's a relatively simple explanation: Small crystals (eg, ice crystals in ice cream) tend to be unstable if there are other things present (which in ice cream refers to sugar and flavorings), and they will clump together to form larger crystals. That's why ice cream gets ice crystals in it.
Ice cream makers put additives in their ice cream to try to prevent this.
Thanks, Mike. The new link works. I assume Ostwald ripening is named after the person who first identified it, since its translation from the German is "East Forest."
Yes, it was named for Wilhelm Ostwald, who first identified the phenomenon in 1896. Ostwald was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909.
It is common in water-and-oil emulsions. Although it is frozen and probably isn't thought of as an emulsion, ice cream is an example.
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