Science Sunday: Water Water Everywhere?

The last couple of weeks have been filled with rain. It hasn't been normal rainy days that I am used to though. The days have either started out beautiful and sunny and by the afternoon it is pouring or the day starts out in a torrential downpour and then by lunch time the sun is brilliant out. Again today was a fairly nice day out until bible study and then it was as if a tropical storm was passing over us. The whole bible study stopped and watched the storm in action because it was so awesome. The trees were violently being blown every which way and the rain itself was coming down in sheets. As we watched the storm I focused on the water hitting the window....and then I had my God Experience for the day! WATER!!!!

I'm a huge fan of water. It tastes good (well, depends on the source), it feels great (such as swimming or cooling yourself off in the summer), it sounds lovely (If you have never just sat in your car for ten minutes listening to the rain.....do it), and it is beautiful (looking at a lake, or the ocean, or even staring at water in a clear glass cup)! Water is the only thing that naturally occurs in all three phases (solid, liquid and gas) AND what is super neat is that the solid is LESS dense, yeah I said LESS DENSE than the liquid, which is not a common occurrence (why ice floats instead of sinks)!!! One of my favorite traits of water is it's surface tension!  If you have ever had a spare penny, a straw and a glass of water you might of tried this....(well, I have countless times and it is great! So, if you haven't tried it....I know what you'll be doing at the kitchen table) you take a penny, fill a straw with water (holding the water in the straw with your finger on the top of the straw) and drop by drop (this is the most important thing) you gently place as many drops of water on the penny. Your goal is to try to get as many drops on the penny before it spills off the penny and onto the table.

When you do this or when you have done this...you will/or did see that the water can bubble much higher above the rim of the penny that you would think. This is surface tension!!!! It is caused by the interactions between the hydrogen atoms of one water molecule with the oxygen atom of another water molecule. This is the same reason why some bugs can 'walk on water' (the little water skimmers). Anyway, water is essential to our survival, along with any other living thing (I'm sure there is an exception out there that I am forgetting). Plants need water to survive. They use water to defy gravity, bringing nutrients from the roots to the rest of the plant. Something so critical to life on earth is something as simple as three atoms. God created a world so complex and detailed (refer back to my leaf post) and yet He keeps His creation alive with a simple, elegant, colorless, odorless, tasteless (once again, that depends, I honestly think that water has a lot of different tastes) liquid that in excessive amounts can even kill us. Next time you drink a glass of water (or try to see how many drops the top of a penny can hold) remember that God designed the simplicity of water to sustain the whole world!

for even more information about water check out: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/h2o.htm