As, oddly, no one seems to have mentioned it yet... I'm pretty sure that air
does separate. Am I wrong to think that "air" at a high enough altitude is
mostly hydrogen? So the question is not what keeps it from separating, but
what keeps it from separating more fully... right?
Eric
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 01:13 AM, Steve Smith<sasm...@swcp.com> wrote:
Nick -
I'd like to interject here that your original question about the mixing (or
not) of atmospheric components was a very legitimate question...
I hope (many) of the responses you got (Bruce's in particular) helped dispel
the mystery of what we all know circumstantially (though I'm not sure most
of us would notice if the O2 levels were elevated after a quiet, still
night?).
While I may personally have some specific experience (as anecdotally
described) with the formalities of these problems I think it is assumed that
most of us here do not!
The innocence of many of your questions as posed should be more overtly
valued... many of us are busy asking (quietly) similar or related
questions.
Don't let the unregulated banter that follows some of your questions be
mistaken for anything but what it is, a good excuse for banter... Doug and I
perhaps being the worst of the crowd for that.
So... I say let the discussion of mixtures and solutions and miscibility
continue... I have to admit that I have a "working" knowledge of miscibility
but not enough understanding of it's foundations!
- Steve
SS wrote:
But are you surprised that your bottle of wine, beer, or hard liquor hasn't
seperated before you even get to pour it?
NST REPLIES:
Well I guess I am surprised by that. Whiskey (etc) is just a mixture of
alcohol and water,no? I suspect that there is some sort of distinction
lurking here between a "solution" of something and a "mixture" of
something.
From:friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 3:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] atmospherics
Nick -
I think Bruce just gave a good calibration on this with his great
description not only of why or why not to breathe Uranium Hexaflouride (cuz
you will have to stand on your head to empty it from your lungs!) but also
the relative density of the gasses in question.
Try the analogy of mixed drinks. Every good bartender knows that you put
the alcohol into the glass first so that when you add the water-based stuff
(tonic, seltzer, juice, etc.) the two mix naturally. If you pour the
alcohol *over* the watery things, you risk the alcohol "floating" rather
than mixing. We could go into the implications of low and high "proof"
alcohol, etc.
But are you surprised that your bottle of wine, beer, or hard liquor hasn't
seperated before you even get to pour it?
AS I think Doug mentioned, thermal energy alone is a good mixer... even
without the constant stirring of wind and convection...
- Steve
Sorry. Mixed up the weight of N and O. So my question should have been,
Why don't we wake up in a layer of oxygen on still nights?
Which brings us to your question about what would make me expect that a
mixture would separate out into its lighter and heavier components. You
tell me! Other things being equal, don't heavier things tend to sink when
mixed with lighter ones?
N
From:friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 2:43 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] atmospherics
Let's not ignore temperature: my farts are a good 20 degrees F above
ambient (at present), and tend to rise before mixing into the unfortunate
nearby environs. And, just in case you were wondering what the composition
of a fart was:
The major components of the flatus, which are odorless, by percentage
are:[4]
§ Nitrogen: 20--90%
§ Hydrogen: 0--50%
§ Carbon dioxide: 10--30%
§ Oxygen: 0--10%
§ Methane: 0--10%
4. ^ "Human Digestive System". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
2007-08-22.
--Doug
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Roger Critchlow<r...@elf.org> wrote:
Nick --
N2 weighs 28 gm/mole, O2 weighs 32 gm/mole, Ar weighs 40 gm/mole, CO2 weighs
44 gm/mole, and H2O weighs 18 gm/mole.
Why would anyone expect the lighter components of a mixture to fall down
more than the heavier ones? If anything, you'd expect the heavier ones to
concentrate toward the bottom.
And why would anyone expect a mixture to spontaneously separate into pure
components? That happens in real life like where?
As it happens, CO2 is the heaviest normal component and it does pool in
confined spaces often enough that CO2 alarms are available in hardware
stores. Propane, C3H8, weighs 44 gm/mole and is notorious for pooling in
confined spaces and then exploding, often in the bilge of a boat and
spectacularly.
-- rec --
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson
<nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:
So, somebody asked me, in my role as a weather nerd, how come the nitrogen
in the atmosphere doesn't all fall to the bottom on still nights and
suffocate us all. I asked the question of
stupid-answers-to-stupid-questions-asked-by-stupid-people.com and THEY said,
well, there's just too much going on. N molecules and the O molecules are
just too busy, what with convection and windcurrents, and all, to separate,
even on still nights. Now, that business doesn't prevent cold molecules of
Nitrogen and Oxygen to separate from warm ones, or wet ones (not sure what
that means) to separate from dry ones. I was hoping that somebody on FRIAM
could give some sort of a clue what kind of a mixture AIR is? It is
suddenly seeming kinda special.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
