About a year ago I stumbled on some interesting facts about water. Data on vapour pressure which has been kicking around for the best part of a century in numerical form revealed (when analysed the right way) that water vapour has three very distinct phases.
Realizing the discovery's significance I contacted Professor Martin Chaplin of London's South Bank University, since his web-site on water is the pre-eminent water source on the web. He was sufficiently intrigued to incorporate the data into his web site. see: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/strange.html As Chaplin so aptly puts it, ====================================================== Liquid water (H2O) is often perceived to be pretty ordinary as it is transparent, odorless, tasteless and found everywhere. However, it is the most remarkable substance. Although we drink it, wash, fish and swim in it, and cook with it (although probably not all at the same time), we nearly always overlook the special relationship it has with our lives. Droughts cause famines and floods cause death and disease. We are about two-thirds water and, without it, we die within a few days. Life cannot evolve or continue without liquid water, which is why there is so much fuss about water being found on Mars. Because of its clear importance, water is the most studied material on Earth. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to find that its behavior and function are so poorly understood (or even ignored), not only by people in general, but also by scientists working with it everyday. ====================================================== It came as a surprise to me too, that such suggestive relationships between vapour pressure and Temperature should have excited so little interest in the year that followed. I was naively hoping that some latter-day Champollion might unravel the meaning of my Rosetta Stone. No such luck. As the little red hen discovered - if you want to bake a cake, you have to be prepared to do it yourself. Now the relationships between Vapour Pressure and Temperature for the three vapour phases are extremely simple involving as they do three integral power laws. A fourth power, and eighth power and a twelfth power. It's not exactly a plateful of hieroglyphics, is it! Unfortunately, experiments on cats and monkeys indicate that if we are only shown horizontal lines for a year or so after our birth, cells that process horizontal lines will grow to prevail over cells that process vertical lines This is because our visual brains wire themselves to be most responsive to the stimuli actually encountered early in life. There are critical periods during which not only our visual brains but also many other areas, including our social brains, are wired to conform to and accommodate the external environment. If that early environment is degraded, so is the development of our mental capacities. And that is the nub of the problem, isn't it. Our scientific education is horizontally stratified. One set of people deal with the big bits, another with the middle sized bits, and yet a third with the tiny weeny bits. There are a few vertical connections, but they're pretty sparse. Early in my research career I had reason to use the word "hierarchical" in one of my research notes. When a fellow section head read it, I thought he was going to have a fit. I felt I had wondered into the local lodge and yelled Jabalon or whatever the word is the freemasons are not supposed to utter. Perhaps my colleague was a non-conformist preacher in his spare time. The reformation has a lot to answer for. :-) To be fair, things are slowly changing. The importance of systems thinking, as popularized by Stafford Beer and others, is at last percolating through the scientific community. The fundamental nature of fractal patterns is becoming better known. The Ubiquity of power laws is now more appreciated and has even been popularized in a truly excellent book by Mark Buchanan entitled, appropriately enough, UBIQUITY. So, let's get back to the vapour powers, 4, 8 and 12. What's that? An AP? Hardly rocket science. eh! Separating out the common factor and the 'la difference' gives us: [4]^1 [4]^2 [4]^3 We can forget about the power [4] since that that's endogenous. What we are interested in is the differences between the phases, the 1, 2 and 3 dimensions. Since this is the Olympic year being held in the place it all started let's really start thinking outside the box and anthropomorphize our three vapour phase monad in terms of field events. The first dimension? One degree of freedom? That has to be the shot, don't it. The second dimension? Two degrees of freedom? The Discus, obviously. The third dimension? Three degrees of freedom? The Javelin. So we now know that the basic unit of the 4th power vapour is ball like, one of Chaplin's clusters http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/equil2.html And the basic unit of the 8th power vapour is plate like. And that only leaves the Javelin. Well they certainly have three degrees of freedom. Bloody dangerous too if you forget to get out of the way. And now we come to the $240,000 question. ======================================================== For $250,000: Almost all clouds are formed in what layer of the Earth's atmosphere? A) Mesophere B) Thermosphere C) Exosphere D) Troposphere He had a lifeline that would know this one. Mitch thinks that it is either B) or D). But he isn't sure enough to risk the money. He's walking, albeit with a guess of B). And walking with more money if that had been his final answer. D) Troposphere was right. o O ( Cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds from in the troposphere, from 2 to 15 km above the ground. ) o O ( "Almost" was necessary because of nacreus and noctiluscent clouds, unusual types which form in the stratosphere, up to 90 km up. ) ======================================================== So, as you are bound to know if you have ever been a boy scout there are three main types of clouds, CUMULUS - STRATUS - CIRRUS But why 3? Why not two? Or even four or more? Why is the change between the different cloud shapes discontinuous and not continuous? Could it be that their shapes are the manifestation of their basic monads? Could it be that the three cloud shapes are simply very large rather disorganised crystals? Let's go a-googling and see what we can find. ===================================================== CUMULUS, which means pile or heap in Latin, are those beautiful fluffy clouds which are flat on the bottom, and as puffy as a stack of cotton balls on top. STRATUS, is from the Latin for layer or sheet, are long, soft clouds that stretch across the sky like string or sheets, and are commonly seen at sunset and through the night. CIRRUS, which is Latin for fiber or hair, are clouds with a feathery, wispy look, and appear as if they've been combed into a clear blue sky. ===================================================== http://www.graceoftheclouds.com/cloudfacts.html ===================================================== It's almost unbelievable. Not only are the shapes of the cloud screaming out to us the geometry of their monads, but even the Latin names are telling us. After all a Latin heap is probably a heap of melons or oranges and the website author uses the description "balls". So from the bottom up we have, Cloud 4 - the ball of wool clouds Cloud 8 - the woven sheet clouds Cloud 12 - the darning needle clouds Ooo! What about Cloud 9? Mmm...that comes on top of the sheets. It figures. What are the technological implications? I know Vortexians are always interested in that geeky stuff. Well, for years enthusiasts with unbridled optimism have been trying to run their cars on water, and some have even claimed success. Now most claims are probably fake, but a fake presumes a genuine article. Have any of them unwittingly stumbled on the secret of turning water into motor spirit? More than likely I would guess - After all, as Chaplin says above - Water is a remarkable substance. >From now on speculators who lurk this site will be watching their fellows very carefully. They wont want to be the last man standing, will they. 8-) Cheers Frank Grimer
