Waistline2
* My question is how does heating water to a boiling point change the
quality
of water rather than its form?
I agree that the form of a thing can change in front of its constituent
parts. What quality of H2O has changed?
^^^^^
CB: I think there is a problem with your implication that water has an
abstract "quality" or"substance" and "form". What are you calling the
"substance/quality" of water ?
In chemistry they call this a change of _state_. Matter has three states -
solid, liquid, gas. The transformation from one to the other is a
qualitative change of state. ( I think they have a fourth state of matter
now: plasma). It is quite appropriate to refer to the state of matter as one
of its qualities.
There is change of quantitative change to qualitative change at the
molecular level. When one hydrogen atom is "combined" with one oxygen atom ,
if that is possible, you get ??? If as we increase the _quantity_ of
hydrogen atoms to two and combine it with oxygen, there is a qualitative
leap to water. There are many different qualities between hydrogen or
oxygen and water. Water is a liquid at many temperatures at which h and o
are gases. Water can quench your thirst and the other two cannot. Oxygen can
meet your need to breathe. Water cannot ( it will drown you if you breathe
too much of it). These are some of the qualitative changes that occur in the
transition from o and h to h20
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