Why is water wet?
Has this question ever stymied you? Frustrated or embarrassed you when you didn’t know the answer? Well, let me tell you how you can now become the life of the party simply by knowing the answer, perhaps be invited to sit at the cool kids’ table.
Heuristically, a liquid wets a solid surface if the liquid molecules have a greater attraction to the molecules in the solid compared to being attracted to other liquid molecules. Thus, water is wet because it meets this criterion for a large number of surfaces. Water is wet by definition of being a general-purpose wetting agent.
People for years have made the surface of their automobiles resistant to being wet by application of wax. Rainwater beads up on a well waxed car, indicating a greater attraction of one water molecule for another compared to the wax molecules. Water can be made even wetter by adding soap to it. This makes it easier for the solution molecules to attach themselves to the food particles on say dirty dishes. Firefighters sometimes use “wet water” containing liquid soap to battle certain types of fires. The soap helps to minimize the conversion to steam, smothering the flames more effectively than water alone.
Do you have a sense of empowerment? A new self confidence in social settings? You should since you are now a bit more chic’.
5
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
8 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.
Got me to put on my thinking cap.... Here is a great bussiness idea !! Water powder !!!!!! (Of course the container will have the disclaimer in small (very) print "Add water" ???
IamNobody
Level 8
June 12, 2018
0
@TheAstroChuck damn it, I should have filed that pattent and also the other one about a system on how to eliminate procrastination ??
Geeze, I feel so dumb. I always thought that water was wet because it wasn't dry. Not only that but I also thought that it was wet because water's true nature is to be wet - I believe this one is a Zen thought.
AmelieMatisse
Level 8
June 12, 2018
3
@TheAstroChuck well hooray - where do I go to collect my extra 10,000 points?
@TheAstroChuck ?????
"Wet" is interesting. Isn't it a lot like "red". We experience both yet our experience is not very exact and when these are explained exactly by measurement or whatever is used to explain them, that explanation no longer resembles our experience of something being either wet or red. If man were not around nothing would be red, do you suppose anything would be wet?
Mary lived in a room where everything was white and it never rained, but she had all the chemistry and physics books. Mary knew every thing you could possibly know about being red or wet yet she had never gone out of her room. She had never experienced anything red or wet. Does she really know what is red or what is wet?
cava
Level 7
June 10, 2018
1
Had the impression from my physics prof it is because the pressure applied to the modules by the barometric atmosphere.
azzow2
Level 9
June 10, 2018
0
In a sense this is correct: if there was no atmosphere, there would be no liquid water on the Earth's surface.
@TheAstroChuck I think the original question should have been "Why does water wet?" And this is related to the question of why so many things dissolve in it. And this is related to the question of its structure. Not a separate issue.
@TheAstroChuck Struggling to understand "separate but related".
@TheAstroChuck So on an atomic level, the with lack of better terminology atoms are so magnetic that they heat each other up with ionic friction and create an H2O reaction all because of the existing environment? Would this conclude that water could exist on other worlds provided the environment exist exactly as it does on this planet?
@TheAstroChuck Very interesting to me, I love science any type of science. Would be a very good move to get the youth more into science. Thank you for all the explanations It is very much so appreciated.
@TheAstroChuck last I checked, a piece of ice, a solid as you call it, unable to wet, has no problem causing a wet spot on any surface it touches
@TheAstroChuck well then you can't say it's a solid because any surface warmer than it will cause it to "melt" but it's still ice and still a solid. " It is a wetting agent over 35 deg. F to 200 F. It is slightly less able to wet at the lower end - emphasis on "slightly." When water begins to freeze, it can no longer wet since the wetting process is between a liquid and a solid." That water beginning to freeze if it touches a warmer object will still leave wet...
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
Share this post
Related Groups More
Memes R Us
3036 members
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.