Friday, February 17, 2006

So give it up, throw your hats in the air and change just as they land

This week, I was a superheated fluid.

At sea level, water boils at 212 degrees. Normally, if you have a cup of water and heat it, it will hit 212 degrees and start to boil. If you keep heating it, what happens to the temperature?

It STAYS at 212 until ALL of the liquid has converted to vapor, and THEN your temperature starts rising again. Only now you’ve got an empty cup which promptly catches on fire or melts.

Did you know you can heat that liquid water well past 212 degrees?

How about a lesson in physical science?

A pure liquid cannot change physical states on its own. It cannot spontaneously revert to a solid or a gas even when it has enough energy to make the transition. To change, the liquid must build on something else, something physically different.

Because liquids are rarely pure and single phase and containers are rarely perfectly smooth, phase transitions occur seemingly spontaneously. Typically, no one notices that those changes don’t occur by themselves.

Change happens because of exterior imperfection. Obviously, we are going to want to change due to personal weakness. However, I'm starting to believe that the imperfection in others also plays a meaningful role in our own progression.

You may not care about the significance of this concept, but it’s the best thought I’ve had all week.

1 comment:

Braden said...

Wow, that's fantastic. Especially the illustration.