161–170 of 198 posts
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Sound would literally mean waves of kinetic energy hitting both the surface of the water and traveling inside it. Does that really count as "without heat"?
And what type of energy is light?
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How many Libraries of Congress full of water is this?
I love seeing insane units like this in the press. Dishwashers, giraffes, bowling balls, etc. Americans will measure in anything but the metric system.
I can't wrap my head around this story. What does it mean in thermodynamic terms? Isn't there a fixed amount of energy per mass that it takes to convert liquid water into vapor? Why does it matter that the energy comes from light?
It's hard to even imagine the multitude of applications of this.
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> I'm not really sure whether to even call it evaporation I can't help but think of ultrasonic humidifiers/misters, which use vibration to do evaporation-adjacent kinds of things. I also wonder if specific wavelengths of light are involved (sort of how 2.4ghz microwaves work on water)
Water particles produced by an ultrasonic humidifier are larger than those of real steam. I know it because I have one and if I run it for long enough, everything gets covered in a nasty white residue, probably salts from the water. Real evaporation doesn't do that.
For constant use, I personally recommend "evaporation humidifiers" that use a wick and fan to induce evaporation. The wick will need to be replaced every several weeks.
I can't wrap my head around this story. What does it mean in thermodynamic terms? Isn't there a fixed amount of energy per mass that it takes to convert liquid water into vapor? Why does it matter that the energy comes from light?
Thermodynamics and evaporation are my day job and I think most other explanations here are missing the point. Evaporation normally occurs when individual water molecules have enough thermal energy to break their intermolecular bonds, leaving the bulk liquid and entering the air. In this case, they found strong evidence that water molecules were being removed in groups of several water molecules. Because intermolecula…
Sounds like a chance to coin a suitably obtuse and prim science name, like Prosocial Evaporation, as opposed to Solitary Evaporation.
Gregarious and perhaps Convivial Evaporation are also good candidates.
Any one else familiar with “solar vapor drive” in the building science community (vapor being driven into buildings from the outside simply due to solar exposure)? My understanding is that it is expected even in the absence of warmth. Is this the same effect?
> … even in the absence of warmth. Tangent (adjacent?): my ice “cubes” evaporate. (They’re hollow cylinders) If I put into my freezer more ice than I can use in a week, about half of the top layer of blocks has lost quite a bit of their substance.
1. Is the magnitude of the effect dependent on the angle of incidence?
2. Can the effect be increased by increasing the water surface, e.g. by stirring?
3. totally layman speaking here: is the peak at green somehow explainable by the refractive index at that wavelength? The explanation can't be trivial, otherwise you'd expect the peak to be at either end of the spectrum, not at a specific wavelength, because the refractive index seems to be roughly linear with the wavelength within the visible spectrum, otherwise rainbows wouldn't work that way.