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Char. Limit
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Thus causing evaporation.
Char. Limit said:If you mean having a reference on supersonic speeds... well, use the equation for the average (root-mean-square) speed of a water molecule:
[tex]\nu_{rms}=\sqrt{\frac{3kT}{m}}[/tex]
m is the mass of one water molecule, in g, I think.
T is the temperature of the water molecule, in K.
k is Boltzmann's constant, which I don't have time to look up.
The left side is your molecular speed, measured in m/s. For reference, sound moves in room temperature air at 330 m/s.
No, it is guessing. You do not know what happpens, so you are making it up.andrewbb said:This isn't hypothesizing. This is thinking about the shape and properties of the water molecules and what is occurring as two or more water molecules collide.
Conservation of energy. Since the temperature is not absolute zero the atoms start out with some initial motion, then by conservation of energy the only way for one molecule to lose KE is to transfer it to another molecule in a collision. This then causes a spread, or distribution, of the number of molecules traveling at any particular speed, but the average energy remains constant. Billions of these collisions happen and, in the steady state, the distribution of the kinetic energies of the individual molecules is given by the Boltzmann distribution.andrewbb said:What is the cause of that motion?
That is a nice suggestion, but the evidence does not back it up. The Boltzmann distribution can be measured in monatomic gasses which have neither a dipole charge nor a non-spherical shape, therefore charge and shape cannot be the reason for the observed distribution of speeds.andrewbb said:I'm suggesting it is the electromagnetic charges repelling and attracting each other. Along with shape of the atom/molecule, it creates a rather random spread of velocities and trajectories.
andrewbb said:That explanation of evaporation is good, but doesn't describe the detail at the molecular level.
Water molecules are polar which means they are basically tiny magnets. The two hydrogen atoms sit on one side of the oxygen atom creating a positive charge on one side and negative on the other.
For a single molecule to evaporate it must overcome the cohesive force of the water (hydrogen bond). Hydrogen bonds are essentially magnetism. (The hydrogen is electromagnetically attracted to the oxygen in another molecule.)
andrewbb said:While heat excites the molecules and churns them more vigorously, evaporation can happen in two ways:
1. two water molecules align so their oxygens repel from each other.
2. a water molecule hydrogen bonds to a molecule or atom in the air.
Does anyone have an argument to that way of looking at it? We are talking about the same thing, I am merely describing what happens to the individual water molecules. The temperature is a measurement of how vigorously the molecules are moving. If the molecules are moving around more vigorously, their hydrogen bonds are more likely to be broken which allows them to escape into the air.
Char. Limit said:Water molecules are kind of small. Their motion is random, and as you get more and more of them (your water glass holds probably close to 10^25 water molecules) their random motion cancels itself out and tends to 0. In short, each water molecule is moving really fast, but they are all moving in random directions and cancel each other out, motion-wise.
On average, the molecules in a glass of water do not have enough heat energy to escape from the liquid, or else the liquid would turn into vapor quickly (see boiling point). When the molecules collide, they transfer energy to each other in varying degrees, based on how they collide. Sometimes the transfer is so one-sided for a molecule near the surface that it ends up with enough energy to escape.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation
The boiling point of an element or a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid.[1][2] A liquid in a vacuum environment has a lower boiling point than when the liquid is at atmospheric pressure. A liquid in a high pressure environment has a higher boiling point than when the liquid is at atmospheric pressure. In other words, the boiling point of liquids varies with and depends upon the surrounding environmental pressure.
-----From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_point
hamster143 said:Air is irrelevant. You'll observe evaporation even in the vacuum.
Char. Limit said:1. Water is polar, yes. But for the most part, air isn't (99% of air is nonpolar N2 and O2). How can a water molecule attach to a floating air particle when there is nothing to support it?
2. A water molecule is lighter than air, yes. But the only polar component of air that I can think of is... other water molecules. And that's about 1 part in 300. The attached water and "air" molecule would be heavier than the molecular mass of air.
andrewbb said:What specifically is vibrating in the atom/molecule? As temperature increases, is the electron shell expanding? If so, then the electrical negativity charge on the atom would increase due to the proton(s) being of less influence. This would cause greater separation of the atoms/molecules at higher temperatures. Therefore the strength of electromagnetic charge is a function of temperature. Now, THAT makes sense in understanding thermal motion.
DaleSpam said:Actually, the orientation is pretty much irrelvant. If two otherwise isolated water molecules collide with low enough kinetic energy to form a hydrogen bond then they will simply rotate into the minimum energy orientation regardless of their initial orientation. They are not constrained to always maintain a certain orientation.
Also, the dipole field of a water atom is electrostatic, not magnetic. If it were magnetic then water would jump onto a magnet.
And you are sure of this because why?andrewbb said:No one really has an explanation for...
You don't see a problem with this?andrewbb said:I think...