Talk:Water

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To-do list for Water:

edit - history - watch - refresh
  • Discuss things that live in water (needs expansion)
  • Add "sport and recreational use" of water (needs expansion)
  • Discuss the dangers of water
  • Discuss water on other planets, and its origin on earth
  • Expand some short statements into full paragraph
  • Add section discussing the water cycle
  • Add a section on tides
  • Add a section on water-based power (hydroelectric, wave, tidal etc)
  • Replace the iceburg illustration with a real picture
  • Add a section on the memory-effect that water has (research by Dr. Emoto)
  • Consider adding expansion on physical properties of water including Molier Diagram and exerts (if available) from the Gov't lab (forgot name) results on other "phases" of water at various temperatures and pressures; these were the basis for the design of the BWR reactor.
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Archived discussions from pre-2006

Archived discussions re:image

Reminder:Please post new discussions at the bottom of this page, and don't forget to sign with four tildes (~~~~) to produce a timestamp.

Contents

[edit] Behavior at Standard Temperature and Pressure

The section on physical properties claims water is in dynamic equilibrium between liquid and vapour at 'standard temperature and pressure' which is a wikipedia reference itself and confirms that it means approximately the freezing point of water and normal atmospheric pressure. Shouldn't water also be in equilibrium with the solid state at that temperature and pressure???

Knotwork 20:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


I really hoped to find the dielectric constant of water here as a function of temperature. Oh well =[ 24.128.156.216 11:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC) Matt

[edit] Display in Opera

The page doesn't display correctly in the Opera browser. I think it has something to do with the image or table floating.

It works fine with Opera v7.52. However, the "Thermochemistry" table on the right site doesn't display correctly in IE6SP1.

2/19/06

[edit] Wikiproject Spoken Articles

I plan to speak this article into...uh...a spoken article, so please don't anyone else do it, mmmkay? Cernen Xanthine Katrena 20:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water Use and Total

How many gallons of water are used each day and how much water is there in the world?

Water, water everywhere, but not enough to drink: 1400 million cubic km. Daniel Collins 01:20, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water is not colorless

While nitpicking another users comments about water supposedly beeing colorless, I noticed that this article states the same. In fact the excitation of molecular vibrations by certain frequencies of light leads to a distinct absorption spectrum [1] which has a minimum in the blue region and a comparativly high absorption in the red to near-infrared region. Water only seems colorless to us because we usually look at tiny amounts and do not notice this absorption. --Dschwen 21:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I can see how technically there is some color - but not at the level of ordinary human observation. We shold come up with some wording to reflect this. How about "colorless to the naked eye"? or "colorless for any volume of pure water most people are ever going to see"? Johntex\talk 21:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Probably better would be "appears colorless to the naked eye in small quantities, though can be seen to be blue in large quantities or with scientific instruments" - then we provide one or a few references. Johntex\talk 21:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
This sounds good. I wouldn't say "any volume of pure water most people are ever going to see", just think diving. Granted you'll probably never be diving in pure water, unless you take a plunge into Super Kamiokande, but apart from scattering related coloration the effect would still be there. --Dschwen 21:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water: the liquid of life

Remember: if you are a very active person, drink 8 glases of water!

not active? drink about 3-6 glasses of water a day.

Ļ

[edit] water's "color"

i thought water appears blue because the sky happens to be blue. the article says that water in large bodies, is blue. now on cloudy days, it's gray. so what gives? Drmagic 01:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Reflection of the sky, impurities (scattering centers) make up the color of naturally occuring water for the most part. But pure H2O has a faint blue color. The article correctly states this fact after a tiny revision. The old version incorrectly stated that water was colorless. --Dschwen 17:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Science is Spotty

Throughout the article the chemistry is very spotty and not well explained as to why certain properties actually make water what it is and as useful as it is. For example:

Some substances, however, do not mix well with water, including lipids, some proteins and other hydrophobic substances. This is why oil and water, famously, do not mix.

Water doesn't mix with oils because water doesn't mix with oils is essentially what this line (and, similarly, many others) is saying. Things like this need to be cleaned and cleared up. --66.82.9.12 13:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Fix it. See water (molecule) for the chemistry details. The water article was split into a general and a technical article way back when. This is the water for dummies version :-) Vsmith


[edit] About SUEZ in Mexico

I dont know where did the info stating that suez has operations in Mexico come from.. To begin with, mexican National Water Comission, the company that is in charge of the water at federal level, is an state-owned entity of the goverment, secondly, the constitution of mexico states that all natural resources are property of the nation (just as the petroleoum). Perhaps SUEZ was hired by the mexican goverment to build desalinization plants or so but definitively it has no water concessions as this is prohibited by mexican laws.

[edit] Water availability

Would Image:WorldWaterAvailability.png (this) image be useful in English for this (or some other) article? gren グレン 06:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, if it was in English. I can't translate it though, as I don't know even one word of German. ONUnicorn 15:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query

Almost all other chemicals are denser as solids than they are as liquids, and freeze from the bottom up. Do we have any examples of other chemicals which share this property?--feline1 09:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Bismuth, sculpting bronze, and the alloy used to make type metal do so. In the latter case it is important as it means that the metal fills, rather than shrinks away from, the moulds it is cast into, thus creating sharp edges which give better quality printing - MPF 21:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How much water we need

As opposed to a real number, I remember the "rule" being that you drink when you are thirsty, aside from strenuous activity or exercise, which would require more. 70.111.244.69 01:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tastelesness

Water isn't tasteless in my experience. I mean, if it had not taste how could one know it was water you were drinking? And water from different parts of the country tastes completely different. But then again I suppose pure water might not have any taste...acht I dunno...forgive my ramblings...

Yes, PURE water is unusual but tasteless. See this Google search. Art LaPella 03:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loss of water from the body

I imagine that water is lost from the body in a number of ways, not just those listed in the article. Breast feeding, bleeding, ejaculation, menstruation, saliva loss, etc are all probably significant losses of water--and yet the article lists urination, sweating, defecation, and exhalation as if that is the complete list. AdamBiswanger1 18:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Without a good source, this is just speculation (although, what's in the article now should also considered to be speculation, for it also is without a source). I encourage editors to try to find a citable source so that Wikipedia can be made more accurate. --Muéro 21:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Well but those are processes that always happen, always consuming water. Menstruation doesn't happen if you're not a woman, bleeding doesn't happen if you're not injured, etcetera and they are temporary losses, not permanent. And they are small too (apart from breast feeding maybe?) -Freebird- 21:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Freezing Point

I see that the addition of the freezing point of water was removed. Why? I am adding it back, and anyone who wishes to explain the reason for the removal please do so here.

--Nyourhead 07:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not? Why should we leave erroneous data on the page? Vsmith 13:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Vsmith. You are a high school science teacher, of all people, I assumed you would surely do your research before stating that the data I have provided is erroneous. Ok well please allow me to explain for everyone interested in this little debate.

First off. The wiki site is titled water. It contains properties of this molecule. It is defined as H2O This would signify to pretty well everyone it is speaking of PURE water. Not polluted water, rain water, tap water, distilled water, etc.. This article by the University Of New South Wales School Of Physics in Sydney Austrailia denotes why PURE water aka H2O does not freeze at its melting point of 0 °C, 32 °F (273.15 K) but rather at the noted -42 °C, -43.6 °F (211.15 K) Please take a read of these articles on wiki as well. Freezing , Nucleation, Water_(molecule)

Thank You all for your time.

If you would like to include this information in another way other than on the physical property pane. Please do so. I just feel better knowing that wikipedia is as accurate and informative as possible. :) Nyourhead 10:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] weight of water?

I think it might be helpful if we said the weight of water per, say, a cubic foot. I heard from this distinct professor from texas that it weighs about 62 lbs. per cubic foot.

It doesn't weigh anywhere near that much. I'll look for a reference. -- Moondigger 19:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
The information is there (density). In everyday terms, one litre weighs one kilogram or, in British Imperial units, one pint weighs twenty ounces. Density varies with temperature as discussed in article. Nunquam Dormio 19:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I stand corrected -- water weighs in the neighborhood of 62 lbs per cubic foot. I knew it weighed approximately 8.6 lbs per gallon, but figured one cubic foot would only amount to a volume of 2-3 gallons. Apparently one cubic foot is enough space to hold almost 8 gallons of liquid. Surprising! -- Moondigger 20:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

69.114.151.9 keeps editing the article, renaming key words to childish/nonsense words, i.e. 'DooDoo'.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.87.23.220 (talkcontribs).

Vandalism is so rife on this article that it should be semi-protected. Nunquam Dormio 06:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I've requested semi-protection; but I doubt it'll happen. I think the amount of vandalism is just barely under the threashold for semi-protection. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's the response I got:

Declined, not enough activity to justify protection at this time. There looks to be enough users available to revert vandalism on the page (which doesn't seem too frequent), so semi-protection should only be used if it becomes too much to revert. Cowman109Talk 00:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

More vandalism:

"Water (in its pure form) taste like poop, smells like cooked spinach and is a substance that is essential to all known forms of extraterestrial existance and is known as the universal solvent. It appears green and fuzzy to the streaking weirdo at IHOP ."

I'm assuming this should be...

"Water (in its pure form) is tasteless, odorless, and transparent. It is essential to all known forms of life."

How 'bout that semi-protection?

--Ivan Diaz 16:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


Now the intro to the article has a bunch of crap about water tanks right at the intro that I know shouldn't be there but I didn't realy want to cut out a chunk like that without others aproval or the consideration that it might be moved. I am in favor of at least some type of protection, it's not as if the article has any breaking news that will need to be changed quickly. If a lower leval viewer wants to change somthing it wouldn't kill them to post it to the talk page to get looked over by more senior members.

        --Effilcdar dec 7, 06

[edit] Archive

This talk page is kind of long. There seem to be comments here from as far back as 2004. Anyone object to archiving? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as no one has objected yet; I'll go ahead and archive it. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I archived a lot of stuff from this talk page. Most of it was older than a year. I also archived the image vote I made, and a previous image discussion as I felt a concensus (albeit a weak one) was achived in the vote and all the images take up a lot of room.

However, while archiving I noticed this comment which somehow escaped my attention previously:

I uploaded this image as an example for what the above users have suggested. I would like feedback as to which images to include, how long each image should appear (in milliseconds), etc., before putting this on the water page. --Muéro 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems that I was not the only one interested in that type of solution; and perhaps this comment escaped the notice of other people as well. I thought I'd bring it back to the talk page for additional discussion. I think it's a good idea, though I would pick different images. Specifically I'd leave the girl in the pool out per JZG's reasoning (see the image archive for that). Anyone else have ideas? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 21:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Addition to water uses

For my English 314 Technical Writing Class, we were assigned to post an article on Wikipedia. I wrote mine about how water affects and is used in food processing. I have seen the to do list for this article and understand that it has a good rating. With that in mind, I was wondering if it would be ok if I posted a section under the uses section of this article about food processing? Lswinger 12:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)Lswinger

Fine with me. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article reformatted

Between Samsara and I, the article has been pretty extensively reformatted today. If anybody objects to the changes, or has a suggestion for a better way to handle it, please speak up. The placement of the portal tag is my primary concern; if it's inserted into the upper-right section above the infobox, the text flows strangely. -- Moondigger 17:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The one question I have is about the chemical infobox being at the top of the page. Why? There is a seperate article on the water as a molecule (Water (molecule)) which (appropriately) has the full infobox at the top. Wouldn't the abreviated chemical infobox in this article be better placed in the Chemical and physical properties section? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I placed it at the top for a few reasons. Samsara's earlier edit was an attempt to reduce the image density in the article. One of the worst "offenders" was the Chemical and Physical properties section, which contained six images plus the infobox. Moving it to the top of the article helped alleviate the clutter in that section. Second, I thought it made sense to match the de-facto standard layout of most chemistry-related articles, which usually contain the infobox right at the top. Third, it seems somehow more encyclopedic to me to have it at the top. Fourth, it helps resolve the ongoing question of which image should appear at the top of the article, discussed recently.
That said, obviously if others disagree with the new layout it can be modified. I'm not familiar with infobox formatting, but if it is moved back to the other section we should reformat it to take up considerably less space. If you feel strongly about moving it back, maybe we could raise the question "officially" here on the talk page, in its own section? -- Moondigger 19:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagreed with moondigger. Moved the chembox back down to the chemical section, where I put it originally. - Jack (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Jrockley, maybe you could relax and wait for the discussion to unfold? I gave my reasoning above. -- Moondigger 19:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Besides, as you point out the full infobox is in the Water (molecule) article; it makes a certain amount of sense for an abbreviated infobox to be at the top of the water article, doesn't it? -- Moondigger 19:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, the full infobox is in the Water (molecule) article. You said, "I thought it made sense to match the de-facto standard layout of most chemistry-related articles, which usually contain the infobox right at the top," but this article is not primarily a chemistry-related article. Water (molecule), however, is. This article is supposed to be more general then that one, and includes information about chemical and physical properties as a subsection. If the infobox is at the top, then we're saying that this is a chemistry-related article and there is no point to Water (molecule) remaining on its own - they should be merged.
User:Muéro's sample gif
Enlarge
User:Muéro's sample gif
As for the image, I thought it looked like the consensus on the poll I made was to have Image:Water droplet blue bg05.jpg at the top, which is why I archived that discussion. However, I did not think that the idea of an animated gif recieved the amount of attention it deserved, so I maintained one comment from the image discussion above. I would really like to see some more discussion of that since User:Muéro volunteered to create one and did create a sample. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
If the focus isn't on chemistry, and the full infobox already exists on the water article that does focus on chemistry, then why have an infobox on this article at all? It takes up a lot of space considering the amount of information imparted. One or both of the molecule diagrams could be more easily placed without having to sit inside the infobox. -- Moondigger 00:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's a section of Jrockley's talk page from a couple months ago when the infobox was added. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] water

why water get dirty? 205.250.5.46 02:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Universal solvent"

I'm not sure what the statement "water ... is known as the universal solvent" means.

I certainly wouldn't say water is a "universal solvent". There are probably more compounds that are insoluble in water than are soluble in water. For example grease does not dissolve in water, that's why soap was invented, and when it rains most of the world doesn't dissolve!

Perhaps this is some well known phrase I've not heard; if so can we find a citation to support it?

Perhaps the statement should read "water ... is the universal solvent of life" - even that it is fairly meaningless. I suggest removing the statement. Your thoughts please -- Quantockgoblin 13:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I remember hearing that in high school Chemistry, and I hear it all the time on tv and stuff. I'll try to find a citation for it though. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 14:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Here's a link to a chat room post that explains why it's called that [2]. Not exactly the kind of reliable source we would want in the article, but hey, good enough for the talk page. I might have a book at home I could cite if I remember to look when I get home. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 14:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I want to remove "I am emma and I amhothothot from the main site, but I can't find it. Can any wiki guru get that for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.6.66.11 (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Conductivity units

Erm. My headphones' wire of finite cross-section and length has a conductivity that could be measured in the the millions of micro siemens. 'Water', being dimensionless, can't. Thats all I know -Copper's article describes dimensionless resistance with a different unit. 65.32.239.181 16:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)