Vocabulary

Questions about words we don't know exist? Ask them here. Hopefully, someone will be able to point you in the right direction.

For instance ....

Is there a word that describes the relationship between freezing and melting?​

What got me to thinking about this word is nothing other than Kool Aid. See, for some reason, Kool Aid freezes in my refrigerator. Milk, apple juice, even straight water don't. It's just the Kool Aid. (Okay, also root beer and orange soda.) Can I draw a simple conclusion from this? Well, it seems safe to say that Kool Aid has a higher freezing temperature than water. But, today, I set the pitcher out to thaw, and what I'm getting from it is a slightly syrupy, notably sweeter liquid melting off a core of ice that, as the process goes along, becomes more and more pale, as if the Kool Aid thaws more quickly at a given temperature than unadulterated water.

So it seems as if a relationship between freezing and melting contracts when you introduce the powdered concentrate and sugar. On the one hand, I don't understand this, largely because I don't study the sciences closely. But it seems to me the problem I have describing the phenomenon is in part related to the fact that I'm trying to use a lot of words to get after what there might be a single word to describe.

Or does any of this make sense?

 

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The word is "slush".

 

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There are many things that do not have words to describe them. Its tough though because I am sitting here and I am unable to think of anything that doesnt have a word associated with it because we think with words. Of course any time anything new is discovered a new word is needed. And really there are an infinite number of words that dont exists.

Haha thats funny, but thats more of a description of the state between freezing and melting, not a relationship.

 

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There's a term that labels both freezing and melting - phase change.

Gregory Bateson was talking years ago about how quickly we run out of words and concepts when considering levels of differences. The difference between freezing and melting would be the difference between the differences we see in freezing and those we see in melting.

A "higher" level of differences, that is.

His example was of the difference between two colors compared with the difference between two of something else (two smells? maybe). What is the difference between those two differences, that is.

 

I don't know, Tiassa, but I have this sneaky feeling that both you and Fraggle have some inner need/desire to see your own huge, wordy, lengthy post on the screen. I think if either of you had any of those "special" words that take the place of many words, you'd both still opt to use many words!

Is there are term for people who prefer to use tons of words to express themselves when just a few words would do?

Baron Max

 

There's a Japanese word that means the space between clouds but I can't remember it now.

 

Sky?

 

...hmmmm....Bombastic

 

Well, neither you nor Tiassa knows, that's for damned sure!

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Well, you didn't do bad that time, but still used too fuckin' many words! If you'd have stopped at the second sentence, it would have been more than sufficient ...yet, wordy as you are, you had to continue! ...LOL!

Baron Max

 

Part I made bold is not correct POV. You only get supersaturation with clean liquids when cooling them. Lack of crystalization out of solution is not due to lack of "mobility."

It is lack of mutual binding during molecular colissions of still highly mobile molecules (surgar molecules in your case). When two molecules collide they just bounce off each other instead of stick to one another because there is no way enough of their relative kinetic energy can be lost / disipated.* If you put a tiny (but large on a molecular scale) solid object** into the suppersaturated solution, it will have many internal modes that can absorbe most of the kinetic energy of the molecule that hits it. I.e. that molecule then has a good chance of sticking to the tiny solid you introduced into the solution. Then more will do the same until the solution is no longer staurated.

Test what I state with a very tiny sugar crystal that you have warmed. I.e. drop it into your supersaturated solution and watch it quickly grow. Note that unless you have very clean solution (not even very tiny "specks" of dust in it) YOU WILL NOT HAVE SIGNIFICANT SUPERSATURATION. Rain making by "cloud seeding" is the same process. The tiny seeds make it possible for the supersaturated (with water vapor) air to form microscopic dropplets of liquid (or solid in many cases) H2O.
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*Occasionally two will stick as they happen to have relatively little relative KE, but then a third, with more typical KE with collide with the pair and "unstick them." You need a collection of stuck together molecules sufficiently large that on average the collection can absorb almost all of the colliding molecule's KE in their internal modes (I.e. make a couple or so new phonons with in the structure.)

**It can even be warmer than the solution - it is not the fact that your stick was colder, but admittedly that helps, as it does cool the solution temperature immediately adjacent to the stick. Thus making the kinetic energy of the molecules collisiding with the stick less, so easier to disipate during the collision with the solid.

 

aren't clouds part of the sky? anyway, this begs the question of what the Japanese words are for sky

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