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Re: atmospherics

Posted by Robert J. Cordingley on Jun 12, 2012; 6:07pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/atmospherics-tp7580159p7580161.html

For a start the density of oxygen is higher than nitrogen.  Secondly gravity is not strong enough to overcome the zipping around of the molecules of gas that naturally mix together due to thermal energy (temperature).  It takes a lot of effort and processing to separate atmospheric gasses (see the price of liquid oxgen).

The top 5 components of dry air are nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (0.9%), carbon dioxide (0.04%) and neon (0.002%).  With tiny amounts of methane, krypton, hydrogen and nitrous oxide.  Moist air has varying amounts of water vapor depending on the humidity (the same thing really).

Robert C

On 6/12/12 10:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

So, somebody asked me, in my role as a weather nerd, how come the nitrogen in the atmosphere doesn’t all fall to the bottom on still nights and suffocate us all.  I asked the question of stupid-answers-to-stupid-questions-asked-by-stupid-people.com and THEY said, well, there’s just too much going on.  N molecules and the O molecules are just too busy, what with convection and windcurrents, and all, to separate, even on still nights.  Now, that business doesn’t prevent cold molecules of Nitrogen and Oxygen to separate  from warm ones, or wet ones (not sure what that means) to separate from dry ones. I was hoping that somebody on FRIAM could give some sort of a clue what kind of a mixture AIR is?  It is suddenly seeming kinda special. 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

http://www.cusf.org

 

 



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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org