Liquid Natural Flatulence

[Jim Dixon]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Justin wrote:

> > As for "sublimate", when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air
> > at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all
> > at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into
> > with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought
> > "sublimate" was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous
> > conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or
> > liquid.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(chemistry)

"Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid
and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage."
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http://www.britannica.com/search?query=sublimation&ct=&fuzzy=N

"sublimation:
"in physics, conversion of a substance from the solid to the vapour state
without its becoming liquid. An example is the vaporization of frozen
carbon dioxide (dry ice) at ordinary atmospheric ..."
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> I very seriously doubt that.
>
> That "chemist" sounds full of shit.  Boiling, evaporation, condensation,
> sublimation, melting, and freezing have nothing to do with the speed at
> which the phase change occurs.  They refer to the qualitative aspect of
> state changes, notably the beginning, (transition,) and ending states.
> Sublimation is solid->gas with no intervening liquid state, that state
> being impossible due to prevailing pressure/temperature conditions.

Yep.

--
Jim Dixon  jdd at dixons.org   tel +44 117 982 0786  mobile +44 797 373 7881
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