Larry A Hoy wrote:
> So what about water? When water freezes and turns to ice it gets bigger.
> So removing heat from some items does increase it's size. I think water
> is the only thing that does this.
>
> Does anyone know why this happens? Any explanation needs to be related
> to me in the lowest common denominator so I can understand it!
Water is a three atom molecule shaped like this:
O
/ \
H H
...hence the H20 name.
What happens with water is that when it freezes, the angles
of the bonds increase very sightly.
Imagine a hangar full of airplanes with steeped back
wings, then imagine how the hangar has to be bigger if
all the wing angles were straightened out.
As for the discussion of voids shrinking when metal
expands, I think somebody needs to think that one through
a lot more. Think of the raisin bun theory of the big
bang, when everything grows all dimensions grow.
If a void is becoming smaller due to growth, SOMETHING
isn't growing uniformly. For example, if you have
a structure with a skeleton and the skeleton isn't
growing, then the voids shrink.
--
Trevor Boicey
Ottawa, Canada
tboicey@brit.ca
http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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