Linus Pauling’s Water Molecule Error
James McGinn is correct that Linus Pauling (pictured) overlooked a critical fact about the water molecule. But does James really know what Pauling and I and most everyone overlooked? For he has not replied to the question of the following comment.
NaCl (sodium chloride and commonly called table salt) is classified in chemistry as an ionic compound. An ionic compound which melts a few degrees above 800 degrees Celsius. Yet, liquid water readily dissolves a significant amount of NaCl so that we consider it is soluble in liquid water. Would you explain for us how room temperature liquid water dissolves solid NaCl at the same temperature? (https://principia-scientific.com/proving-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-wrong/#comment-23266)
My question was not well written (the same temperature should have been the same room temperature so there would be no confusion that the temperature might have been 800 degrees Celsius). And maybe I have not given James enough time to respond but he has had his chance to simply explain what I am sharing.
What Pauling seemed to ignore as he focused upon the two ‘polar covalent’ bonds between the oxygen atom and the two hydrogen atoms in the water molecule; which because of the molecule’s ‘bent’ structure produced a molecule with a dipole moment. Which we (myself and others) considered explained how water molecules were ‘attracted’ to the positive sodium ions and the negative chloride ions; thereby ‘balancing’ the strong electrostatic attraction between the positive and negative ions of solid NaCl.
What I now see, given James’ prompting, is the two ‘unshared’ pairs of elections on the opposite side (away from the polar covalent bonds of the oxygen atom with the hydrogen atoms) of the oxygen atom.
So the positive sodium ions can closely approach these negative pairs electrons until the sodium ion’s remaining electrons’ (surrounding the ion’s positive nucleus) repulse each other and balance the attraction of sodium’s positive nucleus for the oxygen’s pairs of unshared electrons.
Hence forming a more stable particle (Na2OH22+) via a stronger ion-electron attraction instead of by a weaker ion-dipole attraction. This more stable particle could attract chloride ions by the same weaker ion-dipole attraction as formally considered.
But there is another mechanistic step that needs to be considered. It is the one with which Herb Rose has a problem. How do the sodium and chloride get from the solid NaCl (at room temperature) into the liquid water (at room temperature)?
We cannot ignore the fact that any ions of the surface of the solid cannot be ‘bonded’ to other ions as those in the interior of the solids. Hence, the kinetic energy of a few ions must be sufficient that the surface ions ‘break away’ from the interior ions just below them.
I understand that this ‘breaking away mechanism’ might seem a stretch but it is the result of the critically important fact about observational science. Drop a grain of table salt into water and observe how long to it takes to disappear (dissolve).
It quickly dissolves and if one does not like the proposed ‘breaking away’ mechanism, one must propose a better mechanism that is simpler. For one cannot deny that solid table salt dissolves in water.
One cannot simply dismiss what another proposes when there is a simple observation which might have a simpler explanation. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein)
This needs to be read by more than James. For confession is good for one’s soul and I have really questioned what James had continually written about Pauling’s mistake without simply describing what the mistake might have been.
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James McGinn
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Jerry,
I have no time at the moment. But there are two ways in which the small size of the hydrogen atom are instrumental in answering your question. Firstly, this allows the hydrogen atom to better be able to get between the Choride and the Sodium atoms. and, secondly, the fact that the hydrogen atom is so small dictates that there is much shorter distance between its outer shell and the positively charged neutron. Consquesntly hydrogen (and H2O) is able to bring its positively charged nucleus closer in than other positively charged by atoms (holecules).
I like to think of H2O’s two positively charged atoms as the velcro hooks of chemistry.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Reply
Herb Rose
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Hi James,
Also in water the eight protons in the oxygen nucleus have a greater attraction on the single electron of the hydrogen atom than the single proton in the hydrogen nucleus.
Have a good day,
Herb
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi James,
In chemistry there is not such thing as a positively charged atom of any element. In the case hydrogen the positively charge ion would be a proton. Which is very small indeed. Which is why we (chemists) generally consider the proton formed when water molecules self-ionize to form a negative hydroxide ion and the positive proton; that the proton immediately ‘reacts’ with one of oxygen’s unshared pair of electrons. Just as I have proposed that the positive ion of sodium could.
In fact, now I have proposed that novel idea I propose that the one of water’s hydrogen could collide with the unshared electron pair of a another water molecule as the mechanism for water’s self-ionization to form the positive hydronium ion (H3O+) and the negatie hydroxide ion (OH-)
Now I well even suggest that such a collision of the unshared electron pair of water’s oxygen atom with a sodium ion on the surface of a NaCl crystal with enough ‘violence’ to dislodge the sodium ion from the electrostatic attraction with the few chloride ions which was holding the surface sodium ion to the crystal. So as the water molecule rebounds from its collision with the much more massive grain of salt, it carries the positive sodium ion along with it.
As a chemist I see a liquid as a very dynamic system where the collisions between water molecules and ionic crystals that I must imagine to explain the observed fact that if shake a little salt into a glass of water at night and 8 hours later I will not be able to see any grains of salt, but the water, which did not taste salty the night before, tastes salty in the morning.
And if the night before I spill some water on a counter table and do not wipe it up and I find in the morning the water is no longer see. What must I imagine. What is simpler? That water molecules have evaporated one by one due to the dynamic motion of the water molecules in liquid water or twenty or ten molecules as a tiny, tiny droplet have been knocked away from the surface of the liquid water by the dynamic motion of the water molecules in the liquid water?
These are not rhetorical questions: Where did the water molecules go? How did the water molecules disappear? Is ejecting a single molecule from the surface really more difficult to imagine than ejecting ten molecules (with ten times the mass and at least a greater number of attractions (relative to a single molecule) attempting to hold the tiny droplet from escaping from the liquid surface.
Here’s another question for you. How many water molecules are there approximately in 18gm or 18ml of water? A mistake that Feynman made the first day of his lecture series was that he did not ask his students this question. For it is very important to know how tiny water molecules must be.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
James McGinn
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Excellent points here. I had to read it a couple of times before your point became clear to me. (This subject challenges one’s ability to conceptualize details.) I look at the point you are making here as part of the larger explanation of how and why salt is so quickly dissolved in water. There is no shortage of energy in liquid water (this being an aspect of its high heat capacity that itself is a consequence of polarity neutralization with comprehensive hydrogen bonding) that can achieve the battering ram effect that you describe here.
I think it is important to be aware that the dynamics associated with liquid H2O are different than those in most liquids, which is a direct consequence of the inverse nature of the hydrogen bond. In other words, there is more energy in water than it appears to us in that this energy doesn’t register as temperature as/while it is being conserved.
Also, I think your point is consistent with the observation that salt dissolves much faster in warm water than cold.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Did you hear the one about the guy that goes to buy a suit?
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16319
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi James,
Thank you for making the effort to try to understand what I wrote. My answer to the last question is: No.
But I do not agree that liquid water is necessarily different than other liquids until shortly before its density begins to decrease as its temperature decreases.
However, I am struggling to comprehend: “There is no shortage of energy in liquid water (this being an aspect of its high heat capacity that itself is a consequence of polarity neutralization with comprehensive hydrogen bonding) that can achieve the battering ram effect that you describe here.”
“There is no shortage of energy in liquid water” In chapter 4 of the The Feynman Lectures on Physics we find that Feynman began this lecture with the question: What is energy? And a page and half later he stated: “It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is.” I got to this chapter because I knew there were two types of collisions–elastic and inelastic. And I wanted to know the definitions of these two types of collisions. In the index I found: Elastic energy just after elastic collision. So considering elastic energy might have some to do with elastic collisions I went to pages 4-2 and 4-6. On page 4-2 there were the words but not definition. On page 4-6 I read; “First consider elastic energy. If we pull down on a spring, we must do some work, for when we have it down, we can lift weights with it.” And I do not need to read further about elastic energy to understand that it has nothing to do with an elastic collision.
Except when I went page 10-7, where the index directed me to find ‘elastic collision I discovered Feynman again referred to elastic energy. Where I find a section heading–Momentum and energy. Feynman began: “All the foregoing examples are simple cases where the bodies collide and stick together or were initially stuck together and later separated by an explosion. However, there are situations in which bodies do not cohere, as, for example, two bodies of equal mass which collide with equal speeds and then rebound. For a brief moment they are in contact and both are compressed. At the instant of maximum compression they both have zero velocity and energy is stored in the elastic bodies, as in a compressed spring. This energy is derived from the kinetic energy the bodies had before the collision, which becomes zero at the instant their velocity is zero. The loss of kinetic energy is only momentary, however. The compressed condition is analogous to the cap that releases energy in an explosion. The bodies are immediately decompressed in a kind of explosion, and fly apart again; but we already know that case–the bodies fly apart with equal speeds. However, this speed of rebound is, in general, than the initial speed, because not all the energy is available for the explosion, depending on the material. If the material is putty no kinetic energy is recovered, but if it is something more rigid, some kinetic energy is usually regained. In the collision the rest of the kinetic energy is transformed into heat and vibrational energy—the bodies are hot and vibrating. The vibrational energy also is soon transformed into heat. It is possible to make the colliding bodies from highly elastic materials, such as steel, with carefully designed spring bumpers, so that the collision generates very little heat and vibration. In these circumstances the velocities of rebound are practically equal to the initial velocities; such a collision is called elastic.” ”
That the velocities before and after an elastic collision are equal is not a matter of conservation of momentum, but a matter of conservation of kinetic energy. That the speeds of the bodies rebounding after a symmetrical collision are equal to each other, howeveris a matter of conservation of momentum.” …
“Elastic collisions are especially interesting for systems that have no internal “gears, wheels, or parts.” Then when there us a collision there is nowhere for the energy to be impounded, because the objects that move apart are in the same condition as when they collided. Therefore, between very elementary objects, the collisions are always elastic or very nearly elastic. For instance\, the collision between atoms or molecules in a gas are said to be perfectly elastic. Although this is an excellent approximation, even such collisions are not perfectly elastic; otherwise on could not understand how energy in the form of light or heat radiation could come out of a gas. Once in a while, in a gas collision, a low-energy infrared ray is emitted, but this occurrence is very rare and the energy emitted is very small.”
As I have said before, I like to quote so that, if you disagree, you are not disagreeing with my statements.
So thank you for your comment because it helped me to review what I thought I had learned plus a little more which clearly seems to apply to the GHE.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi James,
In chemistry there is not such thing as a positively charged atom of any element. In the case hydrogen the positively charge ion would be a proton. Which is very small indeed. Which is why we (chemists) generally consider the proton formed when water molecules self-ionize to form a negative hydroxide ion and the positive proton; that the proton immediately ‘reacts’ with one of oxygen’s unshared pair of electrons. Just as I have proposed that the positive ion of sodium could.
In fact, now I have proposed that novel idea I propose that the one of water’s hydrogen could collide with the unshared electron pair of a another water molecule as the mechanism for water’s self-ionization to form the positive hydronium ion (H3O+) and the negatie hydroxide ion (OH-)
Now I well even suggest that such a collision of the unshared electron pair of water’s oxygen atom with a sodium ion on the surface of a NaCl crystal with enough ‘violence’ to dislodge the sodium ion from the electrostatic attraction with the few chloride ions which was holding the surface sodium ion to the crystal. So as the water molecule rebounds from its collision with the much more massive grain of salt, it carries the positive sodium ion along with it.
As a chemist I see a liquid as a very dynamic system where the collisions between water molecules and ionic crystals that I must imagine to explain the observed fact that if shake a little salt into a glass of water at night and 8 hours later I will not be able to see any grains of salt, but the water, which did not taste salty the night before, tastes salty in the morning.
And if the night before I spill some water on a counter table and do not wipe it up and I find in the morning the water is no longer see. What must I imagine. What is simpler? That water molecules have evaporated one by one due to the dynamic motion of the water molecules in liquid water or twenty or ten molecules as a tiny, tiny droplet have been knocked away from the surface of the liquid water by the dynamic motion of the water molecules in the liquid water?
These are not rhetorical questions: Where did the water molecules go? How did the water molecules disappear? Is ejecting a single molecule from the surface really more difficult to imagine than ejecting ten molecules (with ten times the mass and at least a greater number of attractions (relative to a single molecule) attempting to hold the tiny droplet from escaping from the liquid surface.
Here’s another question for you. How many water molecules are there approximately in 18gm or 18ml of water? A mistake that Feynman made the first day of his lecture series was that he did not ask his students this question. For it is very important to know how tiny water molecules must be.
“I like to think of H2O’s two positively charged atoms as the velcro hooks of chemistry.” Positively charged atoms, again? Velro hooks? Really?
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
“In chemistry there is not such thing as a positively charges atom of any element.” Come on Jerry. Salt is bonded because the sodium loses an electron to the chlorine atom becoming a positively charges atom electrically attracted to the negatively charged chlorine atom. There is no covalent bond holding it together.
Have a good day,
Herb
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Herb,
I’ve been pondering about you and James and what I consider I claim to know because of the history of those who have been before us in what we now call SCIENCE.
I have previously reviewed several times what the publisher of Galileo’s book–Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences– (titled by the the publisher) wrote in the preface to the reader. And as chemistry major and a chemist who became a chemistry instructor had never read until the first half-century of my life.
I do not claim to know, but I doubt if you or James or John O’Sullivan or most scientists (regardless of their specialties) have yet read the publisher’s preface and what Galileo had written.
About two-thirds into this preface I read (as translated to English by Crew and de Salvio): “For, according to the common saying, sight can teach more and with greater certainty in a single day than can precept even though repeated a thousand times; or, as another says, intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.”
When you write of a positive atom or a negative atom you are using accurate definitions.
But as I pondered, I began to see that you probably do not know the history of alchemistry. Interesting fact, my spell checker recognizes the word–alchemist–but does not know the word–alchemistry.
Only about 3 years ago I learned about the meteorologist Horace de saussure. Relative our interest in meteorology and climatology, we need to start there. But if we are also interested in observational science and geometry we need to start with the prehistoric people who began Stonehenge.
I will continue this later, as I need to go make a reading of the Horace’s hot boxes in my backyard.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Herb,
Made two of Horace’s hot boxes yesterday which were identical except one was ‘glazed’ with three separated sheets of glass and the other with three films of polyethylene. Both had frost on the top surface as I measured their interior temperatures with the same temperature measuring device.
Glass glazed: 31.5F
Polyethylene 29.8F
Ambient air (with separate sensor hanging in near by tree 31F
So maybe the glass does trap some of the twilight’s energy. But maybe my two hot boxes are not identical.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Herb, James, and anyone else following my backyard experiment,
Yesterday I continued my observations comparing the glass glazed ‘hot box’ with the polyethylene glazed ‘hot box’. And the specific observations generally suggested that the glass was trapping a bit of the energy of the sunlight (solar radiation). But I must admit that the two boxes are not quite identical.
But this morning, about an hour and a half before sunrise, I made some very unique qualitative observations. The glass surface was covered with a sheet of solid ice and the polyethylene (PE) surface over the opening into the box had nothing on it. But the PE surface over the extruded Styrofoam had tiny, frozen droplets. The ambient air temperature (AT) was initially 35F and soon decreased to 34F. The initial temperature in the PE box was 27.5F and when I switched the food grade probe temperature device (thermometer) to the glass box its temperature seemed to be 31.5F. But 10 minutes later it was 33.4F.
As I switched the thermometer between the two boxes, the pattern of observations repeated a several times. Now, about a half hour after sunrise, but the boxes are still in the shadow of a fence, the temperatures are 33.4 and 30.4. The solid ice is still on the glass, and some of the droplets on the PE are still frozen. And the AT, in the shade of the fence, is still 34F.
This is real SCIENCE and these observations must be explained (understood) because as an experienced experimental chemist I know these observations cannot be questioned even if my instruments cannot be claimed to be laboratory quality. It is terribly important that I must switch the thermometer from box to box because So, I do not need to question if a temperatures measured by two thermometers are the same. And the ice is important because we know the temperature of that ice cannot be greater than 32F. Also, I need to add that the roof of a two story house was frost covered even though the ambient air relative humidity was 80% at about 4 feet height about 20 feet from the boxes.
Relative to this 80% relative humidity, R. C. Sutcliffe (my favorite meteorologist) wrote: “As a matter of fact, there are many observations of clouds in air whose relative humidity is considerably below 100%.”
I close this report with the comment: I should have done this experimentation years earlier and so should have anyone who was aware of Horace’s hot box and had an interest in the earth-sun-atmosphere radiation balance system. Which is what the greenhouse effect (GHE) is all about.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
DUNCAN J MACCRIMMON
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Hi Jerry,
In case you haven’t seen it you might find the PSI publication:
https://principia-scientific.com/publications/Experiment_on_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
to be of some interest in regard to Horace’s box studies.
Cheers, djm
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Duncan,
I remember studying this experiment by Professor Nahle more than a year ago. And I have forgotten certain details, which I remember caused me to question the design of the boxes.
So I have again studied his report and will specifically comment upon that which I question.
pp 5. “I adhered a square of Reynolds’ Wrap® aluminum foil to each of the glass and acrylic plates and the polyethylene film covering the open sides of the four boxes, exactly at the center, in order to avoid direct solar radiation having an effect on the rods of the digital thermometers so that overheating of the rods would not give false readings. (Picture 05)”
Not sure if I understood this before but definitely do now and understand what I see in picture 5.
pp 6. “I placed a sheet of clear acrylic Duraplex® by Plaskolite® with a cut-out window of 5 x 5 cm to cover the open side of the box no. 1 (Picture 06), which was then sealed with translucent silicon glue on the free edges of the corrugated cardboard walls.”
This I know I did not understand before and still do not. But I do now see ‘something’ in the right-upper corner of what must be Box 1. But this doesn’t help.
Box 2 and Box 3 I understand but if the two sheets of Polyethylene film were spaced apart (which I do assume to be the case) it should have been clearly stated.
I finally understand that the reason for the 5cmX5cm hole in the corner of Box 1 was so the air in the box was not confined as it had been in Wood’s 1909 experiment (Abstract).
And when I study the results of the first experiment, I would not consider any temperature differences to be significant except for the starting temperature of Box 4 (polyethylene film). Which because of its thinness has little insulating value as suggested by the comparison of Box 4′ starting temperature with the ambient temperature. Having concluded this, I now consider the two sheets of polyethylene films were not separated by an air space.
pp. 10 “The first phase of the experiment confirms the results of Wood’s experiment, which concluded that the greenhouse effect inside a greenhouse was not due to the retention of longwave infrared radiation “trapped” by the glass windows of the walls, but instead to the blockage of convection, i.e. the free flow of currents of air between the inside of the greenhouse and its surroundings.”
Before I had not come to grips with what these four boxes were. You have to go back to (https://principia-scientific.com/the-horace-de-saussure-hot-box/) 1767. Once I saw (considered) that Horace’ hot box was the simplest possible radiometer which could be designed and constructed, and have experimented with ones of similar design continuously 24hrs a day, I have no question that it is a radiometer which warms and cools, within practical constraints that nothing can be a perfect insular, that the boxes’ interiors, when ‘well’ insulation, are primarily in radiation balance with the incoming radiation coming and the outgoing radiation as measured by the temperatures of the boxes’ interiors.
Horace’s problem seemed to be that he stopped observing the temperature when it clearly began to decrease. Professor Nahle stopped observing temperatures even before midday.
When one observes the changing temperature near the minimum temperature at sunrise and then observe the maximum temperature of the day after midday and then at the next sunrise observe that almost same temperature as at the previous sunrise, one must conclude that no energy has been trapped by the de Saussure hot box. It is a simple radiometer. Not the quality of a commercial ‘scientific’ radiometer which has been tested and calibrated; but for our simple purpose of establishing that the temperatures of the 4 boxes were observed for a 24hr period of cloudless atmosphere should convince any doubter that the boxes were not trapping solar energy for any reason.
So, I do not see the purpose of reading beyond page 10 because I have done many experiments with my ‘hot boxes’ long before I learned of Horace’s which has had a much longer history.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Duncan,
Hi Duncan,
I have taken the time to read again all of Professor Nahle’s report and have a couple more comments relative to Horace de Saussure experiments with his hot box.
Horace made great efforts to thermally ‘isolate’ the interior of his box from the ambient air temperature. Which is why the 3 sheets of glass. He reported that he began with 5 sheets. And I have to assume, I have not read, that he tried 2 sheets and found that the maximum observed interior temperature was significantly less than the maximum temperature of about 230F.
So the lack of triple ‘glazing’ limited the maximum temperature of the Professor’s boxes. And the Professor never mentioned the base (bottom) of his cardboard boxes which sat on the table. For this was the surface most directly heated by the solar radiation.
But Wood compared his glass house with a salt house because Wood knew that the salt was transparent to the longwave IR being emitted by the interior surfaces and glass was not. I had question if glass transmitted the near IR of solar radiation and what I found on the internet suggested that it did. So, I no longer make the mistake of assuming (which I had) that glass did block the transmission of a major portion of the solar IR radiation. But the fact does remain that a portion of solar radiation is reflected from the surface and that the value of this reflection does depend upon the incident angle. This reflection property is likely the reason that 5 and 4 sheets of separated glass did not create the greatest interior temperature. And the lost of heat by what-ever thermal transfer mechanism is the reason that it seems two sheets of glass did not create a greater interior temperature.
My hot box—radiometer—was constructed according to the design of the V. E Suomi, S. O. Staley, and P. M Kuhn, “A Direct Measurement of Infra-Red Radiation Divergence to 160 mb.,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 84, No. 360, Apr. 1958, pp. 134-141). Suomi designed and constructed an inexpensive, light, net-radiometer to be carried aloft by a weather balloon using its electronics to send temperature data and pressure data back to the earth. They only used two spaced (about 1cm) polyethylene films to reduce the air’s thermal condition between the ambient air and the interior two temperatures. But a fact seems the ambient temperature was measured by the regular sounding made an hour later. And this was done after sunset. My point is in reviewing this is to confirm it is not my idea that Horace’s hot box was a simple radiometer.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply