Water is an Enigma
It is both simple and complex.
Each molecule comprises just three atoms – two of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Yet, scientists still do not fully understand how water molecules work. What we all know, though, is that water is essential to life, making up about 80 percent by weight of all living things. Consider just five attributes of this amazing substance.
1) Water can store a lot of heat without a substantial rise in temperature, thus helping to moderate climate.
2) Water expands when it freezes, causing ice to float and form an insulating layer. If, like other substances, water became more dense as it froze, the lakes, the rivers, and the seas would solidify from the bottom up entombing everything in ice!
3) Water is highly transparent, enabling light-dependent organisms to survive at considerable depths.
4) Water molecules produce surface tension, creating an elastic “skin.” This tension enables insects to scamper about on a pond, causes water to form into droplets, and contributes to the capillary effect, which helps water to hydrate the tallest plants.
5) Water is the most efficient solvent known. It is able to carry in solution oxygen, carbondioxide, salts, minerals, and many other vital substances.
Essential to Earth’s “Air Conditioner”
Oceans cover about 70 percent of the Earth, giving them a major role in climate control. Indeed, oceans and atmosphere are practically one, constantly exchanging heat, water, gases, and momentum in the form of wind and waves. They also work together carrying solar heat away from the Tropics toward the poles, thus moderating global temperatures.Infact, for most organisms to survive; temperatures must stay within the range that allows water to remain a liquid.” It appears Earth got it just right,” sys the book Rare Earth – Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in The Universe.
Of course, the earth is an effect, not a cause. But was the cause chance, or was the cause a wise and loving creator?
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4 Responses to “Water is an Enigma”
On March 8, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Very good work – gives much food for thought*
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
On April 17, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Note that the observable universe is finite, so its creation would not require infinite resources. We could be somebody’s science fair project.
Even if there should be a god, it is abundantly that all of the various cults that men have invented are less about God than about providing effective tools for the ruling class. The evidence of physical reality is that God -Literally!- doesn’t give a damn.
On April 18, 2009 at 9:41 am
Argh…!
Following a similar line of logic to the statement: “If the fundamental constants of the universe were different then we would not exist to appreciate their values” then “If the earth did not possess the properties it does to all *our* kind of life to exist, then we would not have been able to exist in the first place.”
Don’t confuse the fact that we’re able to survive to it being designed that way.
We exist in a very narrow window. It has not always been that way, and it will not always be that way.
On May 4, 2009 at 12:32 am
It felt like Deja vu when I read this article. Now I remember, I read it late last year on the magazine AWAKE! (February 2009 edition, pages 6 and 7). The only diference was that this late article left out the last half of the final paragraph and the following article on pages 8 and 9. Too bad.
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