itshowyousaidit

itshowyousaidit t1_iuhgxbc wrote

Water is just a bunch of molecules.

Imagine you have two friends who are identical twins (hydrogen atoms). You (an oxygen atom) stand between them and hold one of each of their hands (you are now a water molecule). You guys do everything together, and sometimes you’re tired and fall asleep, and sometimes you’re really active and running around like crazy, but you’re always holding hands. Now imagine there were millions , and millions of people exactly like you, all holding hands with identical twins - you’re all going about your lives, sometimes moving fast, sometimes moving slow. When it’s cold, like in winter – you’re more likely to stay at home, hang out with your friends inside, and not really do much. In the summer when it’s really warm outside, you guys are more energetic, and it’s way more likely that you go too far and too fast and lose track of the pack.

Imagine that you three, and a whole bunch of people exactly like you (other water molecules) were hanging out in a really big group, sometimes the threesomes that are moving really, really fast, and are on the edges of the group - lose track of everybody else, and end up separated. They just go off and do their own thing while the group continues on hanging out together.

That is exactly what happens with water. When water gets warmer, more “threesomes” are out running around and moving faster, therefore more of those “threesomes”, a.k.a. molecules get separated from the group, i.e. evaporate.

Now, when water gets to 100°C, it’s like every threesome in the group started moving that fast, and that energetically, that they are all equally likely to get separated and get lost - no Matter where in the group they are located – the group gets spread out further and further apart because everybody is running around so fast.

Basically, when a molecule leaves the pack – it evaporates. When every molecule in the pack is moving so fast that they are all equally likely to get separated, that is “boiling”. For water, that happens at 100°C.

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