If we take a hot dish and put ice cream in it, it cracks because the dish when hot has expanded. All the tiny particles that make up the dish have absorbed some heat and have expanded. When the ice cream is put in the particles composing the inside of the dish are cooled off and begin to contract, while the outside particles have not cooled and they pull away from each other, causing the dish to crack.
Footnotes
[1] Illustrations by courtesy of the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., unless otherwise indicated.
[2] The following information and statistics by courtesy of The Panama Canal, Washington office.
[3] Illustrations by courtesy of the Columbia Graphophone Co.
[4] Illustrations by courtesy of the Hendee Manufacturing Co.
[5] Courtesy of the Waltham Watch Company, and “The American Boy.”
[6] Illustrations by courtesy of the Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Company, unless otherwise indicated.