I've managed to get hold of F. Frank's "Polywater"
for the bargain price of $2. 8-)
On page 7 of the first chapter there is the
following passage which is of considerable relevance
to Joe Cell Lovers and fellow travellers who have
the laudable ambition of discovering the secret of
how water can be used as fuel.
====================================================
FELIX FRANKS, Polywater. The MIT Press, 1982.
----------------------------------------------------
Let us look at some quite basic physical properties.
There is, for instance, a rule of thumb that the
boiling point of a liquid is related to the size of
its constituent molecules. In other words, the
smaller the molecules the lower the boiling point A
comparison of H2O with substances having the same
molecular size suggests that water should boil at -
93°C and that it should freeze only a few degrees
below that temperature. It is also well known that
most substances are denser in the solid than in the
liquid state, but it is equally well known that ice
floats on water - that is, the freezing of water is
accompanied by a bulk expansion. Again, every school
child learns about the maximum density of water at
4°C, but what is not known is the mechanism whereby
a liquid can contract when it is heated.
The ecological consequences of this density maximum
are manifest. Freezing of rivers and lakes takes
place from the surface downward, thus allowing life
below the insulating ice layer to continue
undisturbed by severe climatic fluctuations.
Much more significant even than the well-publicized
density maximum is the abnormally high specific heat
of water. Textbooks state that the specific heat of
a substance is the amount of energy required to
raise the temperature of one gram of the substance
by 1°.
There is also the rule of thumb that, like the
boiling point, the specific heat of a liquid is
related to the size of its molecules, and yet
another rule states that the specific heat of a
solid is higher than that of the same substance in
the liquid state. We shall see that for water all
these rules, and many more, are overturned The
specific heat of liquid water is 1 calorie per gram
for each degree rise in temperature For alcohol the
figure is 0.5 calorie, yet the alcohol molecule is
three times larger than that of water. On the other
hand, when water freezes, its specific heat drops to
half the liquid value. All this means that when
energy is supplied to liquid water only half of it
is used to raise the temperature; the remainder is
stored away in the bulk of the liquid.
The ecological implications are staggering.
Warm ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream, move
slowly from a region of tropical climate towards the
cold regions of the Arctic and the Antarctic, all
the while losing heat to the atmosphere. The scale
of this heat loss is not generally realized. Every
hour the Gulf Stream releases stored-up energy to
the air equivalent to that generated by the
combustion of some 200 billion tons of coal-about
two-thirds of the world's annual coal production.
In other words, the high specific heat of water
enables the oceans to absorb solar energy and act
as vast energy reservoirs. As the water masses move
slowly to regions of lower temperature, this energy
is gradually liberated in the form of heat,
a process which is mainly responsible for ensuring a
temperate climate, free from violent fluctuations.
This unique feature of water has provided Earth with
an environment suitable for the development and
maintenance of life.
These few physical properties serve to demonstrate
that water is anything but a typical liquid. They
could be supplemented, because there is hardly a
property of water that could be called normal.
The main reason for emphasizing water's melting and
boiling points, density, and specific heat is that
these were the properties that first convinced
Soviet scientists that they were dealing with a
very strange new spe............
====================================================
Consider this very telling paragraph:
--------------------------------
"All this means that when energy
is supplied to liquid water only
half of it is used to raise the
temperature; the remainder is
stored away in the bulk of the
liquid."
--------------------------------
But from a structural material point of view the
inverted temperature density curve, with its maximum
stress point (strength) at 4°C energy has been put
into the material by cooling. How can one reconcile
this insight with the above quote.
On the one hand energy is being put in as the
temperature is raised, one the other energy is being
put in as the water is being compressed.
The key to understanding is to recognise that in
terms of Di-Phase Theory the SOLID PHASE is in a
state of compression and the FLUID PHASE is in a
state of tension.
For simplicity, think of the water as a collection
of struts in compression and ties in tension.
Now one can visualise a loading regime which
increases the tension in the ties and the
compression in the struts. The energy required to
compress such a structure will be the difference
between the energy put in to the compression of the
struts and the energy given out by the expansion of
the ties.
With water it is now clear to me that the 4°C point
it where the energy given up by the ties is equal to
the energy input to the struts.
The 0°C point is where the stored energy in the
struts is offloaded into the ties which leads to the
collapse of the water structure into ice.
But what about the other boundary? What about the
boiling point? If we run the film the other way then
energy is being used to compress the ties to the
point where they have no tension and the struts just
fall apart.
And that's quite enough inside gen for one post. <g>
