-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 6:16 PM +0000 3/31/04, Justin wrote:
Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram?
Sigh. Yes. Here's one, for water: <http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1045/notes/Forces/Phase/Forces06.htm> And your point is? Let's see, if we rapidly cool boiling water by dispersing it in supercold air... somewhere past the triple-point, it goes straight through the solid state, do not pass go, and *sublimates* directly into the air. Now, maybe, it freezes at the molecular level, or something, first. But to the observer, it never reaches a solid state, and it turns directly into a gas. It sublimates. My understanding is that it has something to do with the extreme temperature differential. Like you get with a bunch of boiling LNG floating on the Mystic River under the Tobin Bridge. Which is what that guy from the USDOE said.
Furthermore, can you please explain how boiling water could change phase into a gas "all at once"?
I don't have to "explain how". It, in fact, *happens*. This is a common school-science trick in Alaska when it's cold enough: <http://www.efieldtrips.org/Climbing/05d_ate_answer_detail.cfm?recordI D=1219> <http://kinder.cmsd.bc.ca/pipermail/kinder-l/1999-February/020295.html
I went to middle-school in Anchorage, but I didn't know about it myself until my sister-in-law told me the story, when I'd moved back to the Lower 48 years later. She heard about it from an (astronomer?) friend from *Fairbanks* (the "real" Alaska, you see, they don't call it "Los Anchorage" for nothing :-)) who used to do it at -60+ below, or something. The first example, above, is from Mt. McKinley, at 100 below. Anchorage, being in the "banana-belt" and warmed by the Humbolt current just like BC, usually only gets down to -40 or so. Hence the second example, some water, as ice, hits the ground. So, if you'll stop humping my leg, I'll finish my lunch now... Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGsX58PxH8jf3ohaEQLgrQCg4Z9EWmFJdK0vV+2OeLO9G2dOyeMAn1NT g4QopKYk93AZikgHznCRAEO9 =c/Ag -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'