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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881 http://jxcl.sourceforge.net Java unit test coverage http://xlattice.sourceforge.net p2p communications infrastructure