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43 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, January 27, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 2, 2004 Since you asked What’s unique is the temperature Water exists in three forms: liquid (water), solid (ice) and gas (steam). Are there other common things that have this property? I can’t think of any. — Joe M., Ashland Well, Joe, all substances can exist in those three phases. The unique thing about water is that it's the only substance that exists in all three at temperatures commonly found on Earth. Ice melts to water at above 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius) and water turns to vapor above 212 degrees (100 Celsius). Other substances change phases at different temperatures. Nitrogen becomes solid, or freezes, at minus 346 degrees. Metals, on the other hand, remain solid at temperatures of many hundreds of degrees. Remember that the change from one state to another is not a chemical change but a physical one. The differences are in the distance between the molecules or ions, and how actively those particles are moving. Advertisement Substances can exist in other states as well. One is liquid crystal, in which the arrangement of molecules differs from that in both liquid and solid crystal states. Substances that form liquid crystal structures are common (as high as .5 percent of all known carbon compounds, for example). Yet another state is plasma, but since you said "common," we’ll skip plasma, which is more important in astronomy and high-energy physics. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected] . We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers