Water: The Compound that is “Not Like Other Girls”

Science
Written By Nathan Gabriel S. Hao

Everybody knows someone who is “not like the other girls.” From her “unique” interest in popular sports to her incessant need to hang out with “the guys,” her quirkiness ranges from slightly annoying to “silent treatment-able.” This sentiment extends to not just people but to objects as well. In fact, this is the only “girlie” among those that practices what it preaches: water. So, “water” water’s quirks that actually set it apart?

Sweat

The first power lies in a simple yet rare combination of water and just a tinge of fat and salt, which has allowed our species to adapt to almost any environment on Earth: sweat. When we move our muscles, heat is generated. In a waterless world, this would cook us alive, but the sweat we generate absorbs the excess energy and evaporates, thus dissipating otherwise deadly heat. Such is the efficiency of water in, which is known as evaporative cooling, to the point where humans can not only forage for food in broad daylight as other predators hide in the shade to cool but also chase down prey for long periods of time over open ground before they succumb to exhaustion. Despite its primitiveness, this hunting method’s effectiveness means that hunter-gatherers still practice it today. Of all Earth’s classical elements, water has made us among the greatest endurance runners to have ever existed.

Surface Tension

Ever poured a bottle of juice into your cup, only for the liquid to somehow stick to the exterior and run down to your hand? This inconvenience is caused by surface tension, which enables the next quirk: walking on water. As a liquid, water loves to stick to itself and form its own “skin” due to the way it bonds. This is why water droplets on a table do not flatten themselves fully and instead act as “blobs.” As you pour that sweet, water-based juice, the “skin” of surface tension, alongside the thickness of the juice itself, forces the liquid to remain unbroken even as it falls past the lip of the bottle. 

However, what may be your inconvenience at the dinner table grants another insect superpowers. The water strider can evenly distribute its body weight and has ultra-buoyant legs, so it never punctures the water’s “skin” to sink, and its adaptations allow it to both flow gently with and skate efficiently on the surface. 

Leidenfrost Effect

As children, many have experienced the familiar sting of heated metal. The singe of a leftover iron or a boiling pot often serves as a painful reminder not to fly too close to the sun. However, despite being the cause of such a scalding, water can also shield against overwhelming heat. In a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect, when in contact with an extremely hot surface, water does not boil in its entirety. Instead, it protects itself from complete disintegration with a layer of vapor.

As a shield, this phenomenon grants humans a mind-blowing ability: touching, with bare skin, molten metal. The Mythbusters have sunk their fingers into molten lead, and it is even a rite of passage in an Armenian steel mill to pass one’s hand through a waterfall of steel that is hotter than lava!

Nathan Gabriel S. Hao

I like fish 🐠

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