(03-26-2013, 01:04 AM)Marko pro Wrote: So water is in liquid state, ice is in solid/strongly state, aerated water is gas then what's the snow?
First of all, all of this is water - no exceptions.
Second, there are exactly 4 different kind of phases for water:
solid,
liquid,
gaseous
and super critical (nothing you will ever encounter for water I hope)
wikimedia.org//Water_phase_diagram.svg (For a better understanding of this diagram: imagine a horizontal line (our atmospheric pressure) just above the TP point. You have 0 °C where it crosses the left red line and 100 °C crossing the right red line, in between = liquid water.)
The first three are your common ones and pretty self explanatory.
Snow is of course the solid phase, except not your usual huge chunk covering a lake or swimming in your drink.
It's just a lot of small pieces, like sand. Go and put a snow flake under a microscope yourself (do it outside/cool it down so it doesn't melt instantly). They can have a lot of cool shapes like the one BP posted.
The tricky thing that probably confuses you is that snow (or ice) if put under pressure becomes liquid, without actually heating it.
(You can also see that inside the phase diagram I posted: If you start anywhere inside the solid area and increase the pressure (going up) you will cross the red line into the liquid area)
This is because water has its highest density at 4 °C, in its liquid phase. This may be abnormal as most other substances are more dense as a solid, but it's one of the many exceptions that make life possible the way we know it.
Here are some cool things you can explain with it:
If you fill a bottle with water, close it, and put it in the freezer ... the water will freeze to ice, thus expand, and break the bottle.
If you walk over ice the weight of your body (pressure) will melt the top layer of it, forming a small liquid film that will make you slide (otherwise you would be able to walk on ice as if it were concrete).
Lakes always freeze from top to bottom because the liquid has more density and ice cubes will always float in water because of their lower density.
(03-26-2013, 08:52 AM)Blue Phoenix Wrote: They somehow stick together but not really strongly. That's liquid water.
No.
Water sticks together
very strongly, which is the reason why it has such a high density as a liquid and also the reason why it does not mix with oil.
This is also the reason why it forms droplets on a surface and why you can fill a glass of water a little above the rim without spilling.
If you want to fix yourself there BP why not tell us a little more about those funny spheres you posted?
(03-26-2013, 08:52 AM)Blue Phoenix Wrote: The fat sphere is the oxygen, the smaller ones are hydrogen. Now, what does this tell us about its state? Nothing
Because if you know their characteristics this tells us
a lot about its state. However totally not required to answer the question.
(03-26-2013, 03:47 AM)Men'Mine Wrote: Correct me if i am wrong, aerated water is more like a colloidal solution of gas in liquid :o .
Whenever you are not able to distinguish the liquid parts from the gaseous ones you are right (per definition for colloidal solutions = homogeneous).
However as soon as you can see liquid droplets flying around, which is usually the case, you are not. Because of the strong bonds between water molecules in a liquid state it condenses really fast, even within the air without a surface. Thus you can see liquid water flying around:
wikipedia.org/Watervapor_cup.jpg