Um, you are like the engineering child prodigy.
lol, i wanted that title.. J/K
I am in school for engineering though. i know, i'm too old, but i was dared to finish my EE degree ( i started 7 years ago and dropped out) and told i was too old and decided to prove them wrong. Anyway, here's some notes on water condensation and evaporation you might enjoy:
Water molecules can move in three ways (and only three ways), they are vibration, rotation, and translation. A solid substance (e.g. ice) can only vibrate. Hit ice with a rock hammer and you will see all sorts of vibration. A liquid substance can vibrate and rotate. A gaseous substance can do all three (vibrate, rotate and move from place to place without being bound to other neighbor water molecules).
When water (in any of the three phrases) moves from a higher to a lower ordered state, the air surrounding the H20 will cool. The three processes which cool the surrounding air are evaporation, melting and sublimation (solid to gas). When water (in any of the three phrases) moves form a lower to a higher ordered state, the air surrounding the H20 will warm. This is called a release of latent heat (e.g. when heat is subtracted from liquid water, the individual water molecules will slow down). They eventually slow down to the point at which the hydrogen bonds do not allow the liquid to rotate anymore. Ice now develops. The energy the water molecules once had to rotate has been given up to the surrounding air) The three processes which warm the surrounding air are condensation, freezing and deposition (gas to solid).
Often, people say that cold air can't hold as much water vapor as warmer air. This error is even found in some textbooks. The speeds of water molecules determine condensation and evaporation rates. All molecules move, even in ice and other solids. Molecules move much more rapidly in gaseous state than in a solid. Water molecules vibrate back and forth in a ice cube, but move randomly in liquid and gas states.
