Plecostomus
Commodore
...ya know freeze 'n thaw it so much that it no longer works properly?
Ok Wife Of Brian I posted it pay up. 
Ok Wife Of Brian I posted it pay up. 
Is it possible to wear out water?
- Thread starter Plecostomus
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TheWifeOfBrian
Lieutenant Commander
Indeed.
I hope that Mr.Gorsky's prize is worth this thread. 
The water on our planet is billions of years old. It's been boiled, evaporated, frozen, thawed, and all points in between over and over all that time. If it could "wear out" it would've by now.
Chemistry doesn't work like that.
Only if you use the water isomer numbered nine.
In reality, matter never wears out; even in something like the human body. Truly, we will all die sometime, but the matter which we are made out of will not be destroyed by that (albiet macabre) fact.
Hypothetically however, I guess you could get away with saying that evaporation is the natural result of water "wearing out." It is a natural process whereby matter is transformed into another form due to exposure to an element or element(s) (such as heat or air), just as the matter which a man-made machine is made of wears out (changes form) due to exposure to an element (such as a lawn mower blade encountering a #@! brick that was hidden in the grass.)
Hypothetically however, I guess you could get away with saying that evaporation is the natural result of water "wearing out." It is a natural process whereby matter is transformed into another form due to exposure to an element or element(s) (such as heat or air), just as the matter which a man-made machine is made of wears out (changes form) due to exposure to an element (such as a lawn mower blade encountering a #@! brick that was hidden in the grass.)
Plecostomus
Commodore
^ it actually took me a few seconds to get that.
Nice one Lindley...
Nice one Lindley...
Actually, now that I think about it, the real if impractical answer would be yes, just wait until enough half-lives of oxygen-16 have expired.
Just electrolyse the sucker, but Proton decay or the Big Rip will get it in the end.
I thought it was called The Big Freeze?
Plecostomus
Commodore
Yeah I already did the Big Rip this morning (refried-beans and nachos before bed! 
) and my water seems to be just fine. Boiled, but fine.
) and my water seems to be just fine. Boiled, but fine.
It's a stable isotope, it doesn't have a half life.
Then it should half get out more.
Hyuck.
Stability is relative. Even protons have a predicted half-life. It's quite long, to understate it significantly, but it is described by a finite amount of time.
Stability is relative. Even protons have a predicted half-life. It's quite long, to understate it significantly, but it is described by a finite amount of time.
I suppose a given quantity of water could be "worn out" gradually as portions of it underwent chemical reactions with things it came into contact with and thus were changed into different compounds. It's not like the amount of water in the world is permanently fixed; it's in a constant state of flux as it undergoes reactions.
Indeed, an entire planet's water supply can "wear out" on a cosmic timescale. As it evaporates into the upper atmosphere, the molecules can be photodissociated into hydrogen and oxygen by solar ultraviolet, whereupon the lighter hydrogen will eventually escape into space. Eventually the planet will lose all its hydrogen and thus all its water. This is why Venus is bone-dry and why Mars has so little water. Earth has a large supply of water because it was replenished by comet impacts and retained by Earth's gravity and atmosphere.
Indeed, an entire planet's water supply can "wear out" on a cosmic timescale. As it evaporates into the upper atmosphere, the molecules can be photodissociated into hydrogen and oxygen by solar ultraviolet, whereupon the lighter hydrogen will eventually escape into space. Eventually the planet will lose all its hydrogen and thus all its water. This is why Venus is bone-dry and why Mars has so little water. Earth has a large supply of water because it was replenished by comet impacts and retained by Earth's gravity and atmosphere.
Hyuck.
Stability is relative. Even protons have a predicted half-life. It's quite long, to understate it significantly, but it is described by a finite amount of time.
Some grand unifying theories predict (read hope) that protons might decay (ergo have a half-life), but there is no evidence. It may be that the idea of proton decay turns out as fanciful as the concept of dark energy.
Wouldn't it be a better analogy if you likened it to something that's already proven fanciful, like phlogiston or epicycles, rather than something that's still taken quite seriously? As it is, you're comparing two things that may both turn out to be valid, so I don't think that really gets the point across.
Well, you don't want to do it too often, especially if you're past the warranty date listed on the bottom.
But be really sure that if you decide to open it up that you don't break the seals, because that will definitely void your serive agreement. There aren't any user-servicable parts in there anyways, and not much to see.
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