Science desk
< August 4	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 5

What's the mechanism that allows water and steam to co-exist together, room temperature?

I always think of boiling point as more subjective than freezing point. You leave a glass of water, even in a refrigerator, and over time it evaporates into steam. I know this is due to a property called volatile. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 13:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC).[reply]

Read Evaporation for an explanation. And note that ice will also evaporate. How much evaporation can occur, if any, is a function of the temperature and also how much moisture is already in the air. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:19, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The OP may be confusing the scientific meaning of steam with its common colloquial meaning of water vapour. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.173.225 (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at triple point, particularly the part on phase diagrams.

The point is that water doesn't turn into steam at a single temperature, but rather it's a line bordering two phases on a plane representing temperature and pressure. The "boiling point" presents this as a single temperature, but implicit in that is an assumption about what the pressure is. At atmospheric pressure it's 100°C, but inside a pressurised steam boiler it can be higher than that, and on top of a mountain it can be low enough that you can't even brew a good cup of tea. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:36, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised no one has linked vapor pressure yet. At any temperature above absolute zero, there exists a non-zero chance of any atom at the surface interface of solids and liquids for a molecule of that substance to break free from its bonds keeping it in the condensed phase and instead move into the gas phase. When the rate of evaporation equals the rate of condensation (the reverse process whereby molecules from the gas phase strike the surface and remain stuck to it) then you have reached dynamic equilibrium, and the gas and condensed phases will be exchanging places at a constant rate, so the relative amounts of each stay constant. But there is always at least some gas. What the boiling point refers to is the temperature at which that equilibrium breaks down, and at which no liquid or solid will remain behind. But gas still exists at temperatures below that because at any given temperature there always exists some molecules whose thermal energy exceeds the intermolecular bonds of the substance in question. Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution would be good reading, though it gets a bit technical. --Jayron 32 20:32, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay this is the answer I am looking for, but how can the rate of evaporation equal the rate of condensation? A glass of cold water at STP can eventually all turn to water vapor. So there is no 50/50 water/gas here. Thanks. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 23:56, 6 August 2018 (UTC).[reply]

What if the room air is already at 100 percent relative humidity? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think what you're trying to say here is if water never evaporates below the boiling point, there would be no rain on Earth. So what would be at 0% relative humidity, if that's even possible? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 01:09, 8 August 2018 (UTC).[reply]

Think of the glass of water in a smaller closed system, say, a perfectly sealed box. Would all the water still evaporate at STP? Or, think of Earth as a (admittedly, much more complex) system, and note how the water on its surface (lakes, oceans, glaciers etc) remains in dynamic equilibrium with the water vapor in the atmosphere. Abecedare (talk) 00:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay so the glass of water in a box would cause the inside to get moist and up up the humidity, same concept as rainfall. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 01:09, 8 August 2018 (UTC).[reply]

Exactly. And once the relative humidity in the box rises to 100% (someone correct me if this number is wrong) for the box's temperature, the water won't evaporate any further; or rather there will be dynamic equilibrium and the rate of evaporation and condensation will be equal. Abecedare (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cats and canine questions.

I have a question about the non-pack mentality of cats. Say you used a flying drone to drop off a closed basket full of kittens into the middle of the wild woods, and then half an hour later the basket opens itself and the kittens are free to roam into any direction. My question is, once that happens, are these kittens going to scatter into any direction and branch off on their own, or will they develop a pack mentality and stick together? If it matters, let's make them half male and half female.

2nd question, someone told me that dogs and wolves are only interested in forming packs with themselves. So if a solo wolf found a pack of smaller dogs, and he was much bigger than that alpha dog, that wolf would rather not challenge it and take over the pack, he'd still rather be solo and find a pack of wolves. Does anyone back this statement? Does that mean you won't find a pack consisting of wolves, hyenas, and coyotes all mixed? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 13:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC).[reply]

Kittens may stick together for warmth. Cats will spread out in all directions. The occasional "packs" of cats, such as street cats in Italy that one may have heard of, represent a response to very high density and abundant resources. They have found a way to avoid fighting, but they are not a pack. Abductive (reasoning) 17:06, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cat#Sociability and Coyote#Social_and_reproductive_behaviors discuss the sociability of those animals. Neither form packs as wolves do, but both exhibit other more limited forms of sociable behavior in certain circumstances. Hyenas are not canids, and are not found in the same areas as wolves or coyotes. Rojomoke (talk) 16:00, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coyotes and wolves do not get along. When in packs, they are mostly likely to attempt to kill a lone member of the other species. Abductive (reasoning) 17:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also worth emphasising that the original analysis of a wolf pack being a random set of wolves led by an alpha male and/or female because they're the biggest and toughest was mistaken. Usually the alphas are the eldest pair and the other wolves are mostly their offspring. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.173.225 (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the kittens: the non-sociability of the domestic cat is greatly oversold in conventional "wisdom" about the species. Provided the right circumstances, cats are quite happy to live in large gregarious groups; indeed, cat colonies tend to be substantially larger than most canine packs. Such cats will even share food resources and be largely non-hostile towards one-another, especially if they are composed mostly of one kin group (though non-castrated males will invariably fight one-another once they get to sexual maturity; even brothers who were litter mates and quite affectionate with one-another up until about the age of 9-12 months will typically become hostile to each-other at this point). However, these groups are ethologically distinct from the social hierarchies of "pack" hunters--and hunting is one of the defining qualities of a pack, as the close coordination for predation is one of the elements of their ecological niche which drives such animals to maintain close proximity to one-another and to act in concert. This kind of behaviour is seen in some species of cat (most famously the lion pride), but is not a part of the lineage of felis cattus, and thus not found in their behavioural make-up; cats will sometimes tag team a particularly unfortunate small prey animal that has become the group's play toy, but they are generally speaking solitary hunters. Nevertheless, domestic cats can and do stake out territories together: in fact, some research has suggested that the more cats are accepted into a mutual living arrangement, the less inclined the individuals are towards aggressive patrolling of the borders of their territory (otherwise a very common behaviour of cats from single-animal homes). Pack-sized groups of domestic cats also tend to lack the strict hierarchical roles of canine packs and rarely take ques from one-another in coordinating their activities in the way canines do. That said, there is typically a pecking order of sorts, generally based on lineage.

Anyway, bringing all of this back around to your question: if you dropped those kittens in the middle of the woods, they would not be likely to form a hunting pack. But provided an ample source of food, they might stay close together (this would probably have to be artificial cat food supplied at a regular interval, however; domestic cats are not, despite their reputation, well-adapted to subsisting solely on prey, especially in an urban or urban-proximate context). Much of the answer to your question depends upon specifics: particularly the age of the animals and the availability of food. The younger the kittens, the more likely they are to stay together; littermates tend to be very attached to one-another. However, bear in mind that "kitten" is technically any domestic cat under the age of one year, at which time they have generally reached their full mature size and are considered young adults. At the age of four months and older, they become prone to wandering, and in a woods with scarce food they would probably begin to disperse at this point, though some may very well make the effort to tough it out together. They would not, in any event, be behaving like a pack/pride, however; that's just not one of their survival strategies. If they were going to survive in the woods at all (and if you dropped a group of young kittens in the woods, sad to say, but probably most would not survive to maturity) they would need regular food, or they would seek it elsewhere. Anyway, domestic cats do not fare well in actual forests in any event; they are subject to predation from larger carnivore mammals and raptors (against which they have few defenses) and would struggle to compete for their own prey against obligate hunters.

Regarding mixed packs of dogs and wolves: This is a much simpler question: generally this does not happen. There is a substantial degree of evolutionary distance between a dog and a wolf now, not withstanding the fact that they can typically interbreed. They are quite aware of their differences, and these extend not just to the obvious traits you and I would pick up on (the drastic differences in body morphology), but also auditory and olfactory identifiers and differences in behaviour with regard to social ques. That said, it's not impossible. Wolfdogs are generally very well accepted into packs of dogs, particularly if they are in a domesticated setting where a human has been adopted as the de facto "head of the pack" and can regulate the entrance of new members. A hybrid individual would probably have to be substantially more wolf than dog to have any chance of being adopted into a wolf pack: even with full-blooded animals, it is exceedingly rare for an alpha to accept a "lone wolf" into the pack--they are typically killed by the pack on sight. I would judge your own proposed scenario--a lone wolf taking over a pack of (presumably feral) dogs--to be even more unlikely. For one, whether we are talking about dogs or wolves, it is not typically a case of an outside alpha coming in and killing or supressing the leadership of the mature breeders; when an animal is accepted into the pack, they are usually a non-aggressive juvenile desperate enough to attempt an approach and willing enough to show complete submission via every method of signaling available--any degree of aggression towards the dominant pack member at this critical moment is likely to set the entire pack on the attack, no matter how much larger the outsider is than the current alpha. Now, would it be possible for a very juvenile lone wolf, at a very young and unintimidating age, to be desperate enough to attempt admission to a feral dog pack, be accepted, and later, after growing to maturity and following the death of the alpha, assume leadership of the pack? I'd have to speculate as to that, but I would say its highly unlikely, but maybe not outside the realm of possibility, canines being as sociable as they are and given the observed variances as to their behaviour. But to the best of my knowledge, this behaviour scenario has never been observed in the wild. Snow ^{let's rap} 23:38, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ashtabula chemical site

In Ashtabula, Ohio there are some chemical plants:

ASHTA Chemicals ([1])
Cristal Global titanium dioxide works ([2], [3])

But there is a third big one, which has no name on Google Maps: Link

Does anybody know the company? --Flinten-Uschi (talk) 23:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cristal Plant 2, possibly. Abductive (reasoning) 05:25, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's my guess as well. There's a rectangular building immediately south of the complex the OP is looking at and it seems to be addressed as 1527 Cook Road. There are apparently two businesses there, though - one is K&H Distribution and the other is Millennium-Organic Chemicals, part of the Cristal Global network. I suspect there's something glitched on the address and the Cristal site is further up the road, where the OP is looking; it sure doesn't look like a chemical processing plant whereas the other site certainly does. Still just guesswork, though. Matt Deres (talk) 14:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no knowledge specific to this case, but would observe that chemical and similar manufacturing companies also need a great many non-manufacturing staff, including managers, administrators, marketers, lab researchers, etc. The facilities for these may be housed in some of the buildings on a predominently manufacturing site, or on a separate but fairly adjacent site, or both. I myself have worked at a couple of such twin-site establishments in different industries (pharmaceuticals and atomic weapons, as it happens). By contrast, a petrochemical refinery I worked at housed its office-based staff in smaller buildings amongst or on the periphery of the much more extensive industrial plant, but some of its independent small suppliers had their own smaller sites just down or across the road. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.83.90 (talk) 22:13, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]