-----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: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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'