W4: Structure and states of water

 Scientific values of water  I

Soul and body is like water and hydrogen, if separately used both burn but when used together it becomes the origin of life.

-ABCAYC  

 NOTE: This is a long article.This article will have some scientific terms. It has been explained in a very lucid manner, to know more about those terms refer Wikipedia for more information. 

water droplet under electron microscope 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F326792516689299160%2F&psig=AOvVaw2azkf_vtng0pbqA984XYmH&ust=1622027073527000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCJiAk_bX5PACFQAAAAAdAAAAABAU

Water is one of the most important substance available on earth that is essential for everything from birth to death. So, it is important to know about water in a structured and scientific way to know its full potential.

English natural philosopher and experimental scientist Henry Cavendish was the first person to find that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen in 1781.English chemist and natural philosopher William Nicholson and English surgeon Anthony Carlisle were the first to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen by the process of electrolysis (Initiating a chemical reaction using direct current) in 1800. Then French scientist Gay Lussac and German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt found that water is made up of one part of oxygen and two parts of hydrogen.

 Henry Cavendish

https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/story/201810/henry-cavendish.jpeg?p9V_Pt2MM9dSNYzM_0nIKoyEWVsSbrtI&size=770:433

Introduction

Water is an inorganic substance (it does not contain the element carbon as its parent element).Water in a molecular view acts like a magnet i.e. it has two different poles positive and negative so water is a polar (like poles of our earth) molecule. Water has no taste, smell and color ( But due to atmospheric conditions water has a lite blue color). Water is the most studied chemical substance in the field of chemistry. Due to its great use water has a nick name "The universal solvent". 

In fact water is the most abundant chemical substance on earth and the third most abundant molecule in the universe. ( The first two are molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide).

General structure of water molecule

Water is a very simple molecule containing one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atom. The bonds between Hydrogen and Oxygen are polar and this is because of the tendency of oxygen to attract the electrons of hydrogen atoms to itself thus making it a polar covalent bond. So, the oxygen atom has a negative sign and hydrogen atoms have a positive sign. Making it similar to the poles of a magnet.

As water has 6 electrons in the outer most shell and hydrogen has one each. So, only two pairs of electrons are formed which makes the two pair or the 4 electrons in the oxygen atom lonely i.e. two lone pairs of electrons. As electrons are charged particles by nature they exert some non contact force on the paired electrons thus separating the pairs by 105 degrees which gives a bent structure to the molecule. Due to this bent shape the polar nature of the molecule exist.

Since each hydrogen atom has two lone pair of electrons it can make bond between other two hydrogen of other water molecule.So this structure extends.

General structure of water

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematics-of-the-atomic-structure-of-water-molecule-and-the-hydrogen-bonds-between-water_fig8_331708266

Even though water is the most studied molecule it is a mystery.

Note on hydrogen bond

Hydrogen bond is a type of dipole-dipole bond that is not a covalent bond. It is usually formed bewteen hydrogen and a electronegavative element like oxygen. 

Formation of hydrogen bond requires two important eligibility. 

1. The other element should be more electronegavative that hydrogen. 

2. The other element should have lone pair of electrons.( Electronegavative is the ability of a element to pull the electron of the the other element which is bonded with it).

So by definition of hydrogen bond hydrogen and oxygen have all the essential requirements to form a hydrogen bond.

Real hydrogen bonding in water seen under microscope

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5249e9fd69beddb65e92329d-970-546/ku-bigpic-6.jpg 

Understanding the structure of liquid water

As its H2O formula suggests, each water molecule is made of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Water molecules tend to stick together in what chemists call hydrogen bonds. The oxygen can form two hydrogen bonds, so a molecule can link with up to four others--with two links through its oxygen atom and one through each of its hydrogen. In ice, each molecule forms four stable bonds, while as a liquid, water bonds form and break a trillion times per second. The short lived patterns formed by bonding in the liquid are still far from being understood, but are thought to be responsible for the peculiar properties of water, including its relatively high boiling point, its high viscosity, and--last, but not least--its ability to sustain the chemical reactions inside a living cell.

So due to this arrangement of atoms the water molecules collective form a tetrahedral structure.

( Tetrahedral structure- it a simple triangular pyramid. Each corner represent an atom of the molecule, it has 6 corners. The atom at the center is called the central atom).Due to irregular bond lengths if don't form a symmetrical tetrahedral shape.

These types of shape are common among the bonding of molecules. In reality they don't look exactly like the geometric shape but clove to that. It represents the whole structure when the edges are connected. They are like consultation of stars. We generally have to map the structure by drawing lines.

Structural and dynamical studies on confined water - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-Electronic-distribution-in-water-molecule-the-tetrahedral-structure-of-the_fig1_337927131 [accessed 25 May, 2021]

(a) Electronic distribution in water molecule: the tetrahedral structure of the molecular orbitals is shown, with the electrons involved in the covalent bonds and the lone pairs, according to the VSEPR theory [43, 44]. (b) Structure of single water molecule (hydrogen atoms are white, oxygen atom is red) [by Greg Stewart, graphic designer at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, USA], represented according to the ball-and-stick model. (c) Tetrahedral arrangement of hydrogenbonded water molecules [Molecular Cell Biology, Sixth Edition c 2008, W.H.Freeman and Company].

Note: Water as a single molecule had a bent structure. Water as a liquid as a tetrahedral structure due to the bonding of lone pair electrons.

Understanding the structure of solid water- Ice

Liquid water is a fluid.  The hydrogen bonds in liquid water constantly break and reform as the water molecules tumble past one another.  As water cools, its molecular motion slows and the molecules move gradually closer to one another.  The density of any liquid increases as its temperature decreases. 

For most liquids, this continues as the liquid freezes and the solid state is denser than the liquid state.  However, water behaves differently.  It actually reaches its highest density at about 4°C. Between 4°C and 0°C, the density gradually decreases as the hydrogen bonds begin to form a network characterized by a generally hexagonal structure with open spaces in the middle of the hexagons. 

Structure of Ice

https://crystalsymmetry.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/ice_ih_molecular_arrangement.png

(graphic created with VESTA:
K. Momma and F. Izumi, “VESTA 3 for three-dimensional visualization of crystal, volumetric and morphology data,” J. Appl. Crystallogr., 44, 1272-1276 (2011).

Thus unlike liquid water which has weak hydrogen bond between the molecule and a tetrahedral structure, water as ice has a strong and regular hydrogen bonding between the molecules and has a orthogonal structure.i.e. liquid has a random structure like a 2 year playing with Lego blocks and the structure of water is ordered like a civil engineer building a wall.

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/96452/which-has-stronger-hydrogen-bonds-water-or-ice

Understanding the structure of gas water- water vapor

It has a less defined structure that seems to be like a distorted, hydrogen-bonded form of water .Water in the gas phase consists of isolated molecules of H2O. Each molecule is bent with a bond angle of 105 deg.  So it has a very similar to the general structure of water.

https://dlpng.com/png/6505645

States of water

As we saw above water has three states of water.

Water or oxidane- means the liquid state of water. In this state the molecules are loosely packed.

Ice- means the solid state of water. In this state the water molecules are ordered and closely packed.

Vapor or steam- means the gaseous state of water. It have a very random structure and very loosely packed.

https://cdn.britannica.com/05/92905-050-8B789505/states-matter-liquid-gas.jpg

https://www.britannica.com/science/phase-state-of-matter

The addition of heat or removal of heat can cause phase transitions.

Phase transitions in water

Freezing- Liquid to solid. The water freezes at 0 degree Celsius. Which is called as freezing point of water. Eg. Water kept in freezer.

Melting- Solid to liquid. The water starts to melt from 0 degree Celsius. I.e both melting and freezing point of water are same. Eg. Ice kept on a glass.

Vaporization- Liquid to vapor. Water starts vaporization at 100 degree Celsius. This point is called as the boiling point of water. At this temperature the water starts to boil and become vapor. Eg. While boiling water in a pan we can see some white fumes these are water in vapor state.

Condensation- Vapor to Liquid. Water from vapor state cools down to water. The condensation starts at 100 degree Celsius. I.e. if the temperature is maintained at 100 degrees the water will become gas of it is not maintained the it will reverse the process. Eg. Having a cold soda on a hot day, the hot vapor molecules hits the surface of the soda can resulting in cooling of the vapor rapidly into water. this why a soda can sweets in a hod day.

Sublimation- Ice to vapor. Without going to Liquid State water turns to vapor. This process takes place below the freezing point. Eg. On hanging a wet sweeter in freezing temperatures below 0 degree Celsius. Practical example is vanishing of naphthalene balls. 

Deposition- Vapor to ice. It is the reverse of the above process. Eg. Frost is a good example of deposition.i.e. without liquid formation the vapor becomes solid i.e. frost.

https://sketchplanations.com/states-of-matter

TO BE CONTINUED...........

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeOcfm9qDMI

Hope this article was useful and I hope you learnt something from it.

If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.

For previous articles on this follow the following link

W3: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w3-mythological-stories-about-creation.html#more

W2: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w2-scientific-exploration-of-origins-of.html

W1: https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html

   

     

W3: The Mythological origin of water

 THE MYTHOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF WATER

  "Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble." 

-Yehuda Berg

The Creation (c. 1896–1902) painting by James Tissot

 Mythology originally means story of the people. In a basic sense the genuineness of the myths is a dark question. It seems it is true, it tickles the mind to believe that it is the ultimate truth but and we have traveled very far from the middle ages to the modern world we have to think about it.

Basically this article is a derivative of the stories of creation. It may sometimes go out of our topic. Hold the rope tight to tickle your minds. After reading this you will know why it seems true and why we have to question it.

The concept of cosmic sea

The concept of cosmic sea is found in many cultures and civilization. The concept says that the whole world is enveloped by the water create ate the beginning of time. It is believed that the water was the god source of cosmic through which all the life was created and from the act of creation the inhabitable space was separated from the cosmic water. 

This cosmic sea has its own version in different civilization and mythology. Some of them will be discussed. 

Cosmic sea by Angelo Ventura 

https://www.deviantart.com/angeloventura/art/Cosmic-sea-745035995

Primordial waters

Primordial means something that is existing from the beginning of time, So primordial waters or ocean is water existing from the beginning from time. Primordialis in Latin means "first of all". This myth of primordial waters is a very common and similar myth in many cultures.

For the Babylonians, as it is on the seven tablets resits the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish. Nothing existed in the beginning but Apsu and Tiamat, the masculine and feminine avatar of the chaotic and formless primordial waters. 

For the Egyptians to this watery chaos of pre-creation as ‘nu’ or ‘ nun,’ a state of unlimited potential out of which the first primeval mound of solid earth would eventually arise.

Nun, the embodiment of the primordial waters, lifts the barque of the sun god Ra into the sky at the moment of creation.

In Hindu mythology, the Dānavas were a race descending from Dakṣa(In Hinduism, Daksha means  "able, dexterous, or honest one" is one of the Prajapati, the agents of creation, as well as a divine king rishi. He is also a Manasputra, mind created son of the creator god Brahma). They were the sons of Danu, the daughter of Dakṣa. Danu is connected with the waters of the heavens and is likely associated with the formless, primordial waters that existed prior to creation. Under the leadership of Bali and others, the Dānavas revolted against the Devas(supernatural beings who were generally good in nature). Despite initial successes, the Dānavas were defeated by the god Vāmana (fifth incarnation of Lord Vishnu) who came in front of Bali for three steps of land. Bali, a honest and  generous king, said yes to his wish. But, after King Bali's yes, Vamana took enormous form, so big that the entire earth was his first step, the second step covered entire heaven and hell. Now there was no place to put the third step.Vamana being pleased by his devotion, gave him a boon before placing in Pathala, that once in a year, he will be allowed to see his subjects.

The Cosmic Ocean Reveals Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (opaque watercolor and gold on paper, San Diego Museum, 1835)

From biblical and Islamic theology. the spoken word that is the key divine tool used to calm the waters and initiate creation. In Genesis, God “moved upon the face of the waters,” the biblical version of the formless and void primeval waters (GEN 1:2). In the begin of creation, God speaks his first command—“Let there be Light” (GEN 1:3)—and at this point begins the process of bringing order to the earth and its waters through the power of the spoken word(GEN 1:6). The Quran relates that Allah “made from water every living thing,” (21:30) and that to begin creation, Allah spoke to the earth and sky, commanding them to “come together, willingly or unwillingly” (41:11). In simple words,the word of god created the primeval waters.

By John Sanidopoulos

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/01/did-god-create-water.html

Why Primordial water is chosen, why not air or any other element? 

This can be seen from the nature of water, we know water exist in the three basic states of matter. Water-liquid; Ice-solid; Water vapor-gas;. Next it has two building block of the life Hydrogen for external energy and Oxygen for internal energy. Amazingly water can be ordered, partially ordered and can also be disordered.  

What is the origin of primordial waters?

So from all the above information, the convincing origin of water would be "The word of God". The spoken word is the creation mechanism.Further study would reveal that the creative power of the spoken word found its way into traditional religious and social practices of the cultures, from the vocalized spells or ‘utterances’ found in the Pyramid Texts to the spoken curses and blessings of Celtic poetry, revealing a wide-ranging belief that the spoken word could continue to change the physical world as it had done during the process of creation. 

Conclusion

At the first we did not had a idea about how the water was created. It was from existing water before pre creation the chaos and disorder made into order by many ways in different myths. Then finally we have a convincing  and the only way account of the creation of water from the myth is the spoken word of the creator or creators.The spoken word can be considered as the primary power by which the creator or creators set order to the roiling waters of the first time.  

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMINBig.ASP?size=big&IllID=60211

Hope this article was useful and I hope you learnt something from it.

If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.

For previous articles on this follow the following link

W2:https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w2-scientific-exploration-of-origins-of.html

W1:https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html

W2 : A Scientific exploration of the origin of water

 A Scientific exploration of the origin of water

“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

 – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

In a basic sense water is made up of two important elements. The hydrogen and oxygen. After knowing this I had lots of questions in my head. What is hydrogen and oxygen? How they are mixed to form water by the bottle companies? We have both hydrogen and water in our atmosphere so why cant we make water at home? and more. Yes, these questions are silly but why it is hard to answer them?

Widely speaking hydrogen is the most is the most abundant element in the universe and oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe as far as we know. There are two way to look the answer to our question. First, looking in to the space for answers. Second, looking deep into the earth. i.e. Astrophysical view point and geological view point. So the answers that i am giving are not the theories it is only hypothesis (i.e. we don't have perfect evidence but the concept is convincingly true). Let's get started.

Asteroids could have carried water, locked away in their minerals, to a young Earth, depositing it through impacts during our planet’s early years. But this isn’t the only possible explanation for our watery world.

Ron Miller for Astronomy

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={C1220933-F120-43B7-94A0-63508570B36F}

Astrophysical hypothesis

First we should know why we can't create water just by mixing oxygen and hydrogen.Basically it require a lot of energy to mix two chemical compound, as hydrogen inflammable and the energy required to mix hydrogen and oxygen is very high; this leads us to a big explosion rather than creating water.

During the birth of a star like sun we have a very unique temperature and pressure conditions. usually both temperature and pressure is very high (like 3 million kelvin). So at that conditions the reactions or the mixing of elements can occur very rapidly(say 100th of a second). So during such condition the water may be formed by the reaction of hydrogen with water in gaseous state.

Generally water have a very low condensation (change of water from gaseous state to liquid state) temperature so the water forms a dense gas disc called as portoplanetary disc and starts moving, as it moves away from the star the gas in the atmosphere of the disc cools down in certain temperature and in any one of case it condense to liquid from gas without traping other elements.

Another way of water on a planet is by the comets and trans-Neptune objects in the frost line (we live in habitable zone). Due to a star gravitational for by a big planer these get accelerated and loose its path and travel in space until it hits something like a planet. These objects are from very cool temperatures so the water is contained in a very frost state it generally contain ocean water that contains other elements like sodium. chlorine, magnesium etc. So such objects after hitting a planet will deposit a huge amount of water.

Earth formed from the dust and gas of the nebula that surrounded our infant Sun. This artist’s concept shows the protoplanetary disk of material around a young star. The disk contains the individual components of water — hydrogen and oxygen — and water in both ice and vapor forms.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={797FD6BC-2071-4AA1-BCF8-5A09903F12C8}

Geological hypothesis

Recent measurements of the chemical composition of Moon rocks suggest that Earth was born with its water already present.The isotopic ratios provide a unique "chemical fingerprint" that is used to compare Earth's water with reservoirs elsewhere in the Solar System. One such isotopic ratio, that of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H), is particularly useful in the search for the origin of water on Earth.

Investigating lunar samples carried to Earth by the Apollo 15 and 17 missions found a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio that matched the isotopic ratio in carbonaceous chondrites ( A type of non modified meteorite). The ratio is also similar to that found in water on Earth which is (1.5576 ± 0.0005) × 10−4. The findings suggest a common source of water for both objects. 

This supports a theory that Jupiter temporarily migrated into the inner Solar System, destabilizing the orbits of water-rich carbonaceous chondrites. As a result, some of the bodies could have fallen inwards and become part of the raw material for making Earth and its neighbors. The discovery of water vapor out-gassing from Ceres (largest object in our asteroid belt) provides related information on water-ice content of the asteroid belt.

Even though it is similar to the astrophysical hypothesis. It is little different, because these meteorites were the building blocks of the earths core. So earth was formed with water by this way.

Astronomers once thought comets, could be the source of Earth’s water. But the amount of heavy water (D2O) these icy bodies carry doesn’t match the amount found on Earth. Researchers then turned to water-rich asteroids, such as the one in this artist’s impression (bottom), as a more likely source of water.

From top: NASA; Mark A. Garlick, space-art.co.uk, University of Warwick

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={76978FB3-1444-4F5A-A545-AA55201CB713}

 Conclusion 

The above stated are not truly real but they are the best fitted answers we have. As I said in prologue it is not my own hypothesis alone rather I have collected the information from many books and articles.

Now it time for us to think how we got the things we have.

  

Hope this article ignited your mind. If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.

For the previous article click the following link https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html

 

     

W1:Clear liquid aka water

 Water - What we should know about the clear liquid?

" The fall of dropping water wears away the stone.  -Lucretius the author of On the nature of things 

 

An illustration of the history of origins of water in our solar system. A new study finds it started in the molecular cloud (prior to the Sun’s formation), traveled through the stages of star formation, until it wound up in the solar system.(Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO)

From Los Angels times: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-old-water-on-earth-20140923-story.html  

As a student of science I can say water is the liquid state of H2O at strandard conditions of temperature and pressure. I simply don't want to dull everyone. We know that we can't live without water even for a day, but we simply don't understand its importance. 

Consider a situation where you are meeting an important person in your life, say your life partner, will you just see the person and live for your whole life. You can't, even I can't. So we want to know them personally or simply we want to know about their family, what they do... and so on. So, as a small start let us know about some things which exist in every day life.

This will not be a very complex article to read, rather it will be a prologue to a series of articles about different aspects of water that follows in the coming days.Starting with the origin of water. It is a question of centuries to be answered, but i will give the best of it.Then we will cover up the areas of mythology, philosophy, tales, science and the very need of it in the future.

Water seems ordinary; it pours from our taps and falls from the sky. But you would be surprise that how it came and from where it came. It defies the normal rules of  world, it has shaped the Earth, its life and our civilization. Without it we would not exist. The water in our rivers, lakes and oceans all came from outer space. How it arrived here and how those molecules of water were formed is a story scientists have only learned in recent years and which takes us back to the beginning of the universe.

My writings will be based on the articles in web resources, books and my own thoughts. 

I assure  that it would be a fun thing to explore water in a new different way.