 The artifact is entirely a consequence of molecular dynamics algorithms and is wholly unphysical, since it violates the principle of equipartition of energy.The flying ice cube artifact arises from repeated rescalings of the velocities of the particles in the simulation system.Velocity rescaling is a means of imposing a thermostat on the system by multiplying the velocities of a system's particles by a factor after an integration timestep is completed, as is done by the Berendsen thermostat and the Bussi–Donadio–Parrinello thermostat.