Physics. (looks funny but it's only physics !!!)

[mamirkalali@lucent.com]

Phil,
Interesting question (however impractical it may be to measure anything
from water dumped out of an airplane !!!?)
First of all, water dumped from an airplane does not get "atomized" as
in "single atoms". "Atomizers', as used in the perfume industry, only
chop the liquid in smaller chunks. Therefore, nothing fancy happens to
the smaller chunks of water dropping from the airplane. They may freeze
FASTER due the change in the heat transfer characteristics but the same
number of calories will have to be removed in order to freeze the water
when you add them all together.
Now, if you thought that was funny, think about what happens when you
separate the water molecules so that polarity of one molecule no longer
effects the other molecules. (remember the 105 degree angle between the
hydrogen atoms?)  How many calories should be removed now? Does the
concept of "freezing" make any sense any more? You should still be able
to chill your scotch with the stuff (or can you?).
Even this is not  funny, it's physics !!!
Moe 

Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 22:16:48 GMT
From: quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)
Subject: Physics

Funny stuff, physics.

Let's take the freezing of water.  The process involves cooling the
water to zero Celcius (one calorie per gram per degree, by definition)
and then actually freezing it - 80 calories per gram for latent heat of
solidification, or whatever you call it.

Thus to freeze a gram of water at 1 degree Celcius, it has to give
up 81 calories.

A gram of water at 91 degrees Celcius has to give up 171 calories.

So if you put two buckets of water side by side in an Alaskan garage -
one at 1 degree and one at 91 degrees - you'd expect the colder bucket
to freeze first.

But what would happen if you threw the buckets out of an aeroplane,
such that they atomised in the airstream.  Is the result the same?