HPT 101: Lesson 2: Supercritical Water
In this lesson, we will learn facts about “supercritical water” and then make inferences about what it would have done to granite in the “Great Deep.”
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VIDEOS:
Video 2A: Water and its three basic phases (19 min)
This video reviews basic information about water molecules and three phases of matter: solid, liquid and gas. In the last half of this video I use the simulation program listed below in Activity 2.1. After viewing this video you can try out the simulation for yourself! (NOTE: YOU MIGHT HAVE TO INCREASE THE VOLUME setting for this video. The recording process for the simulator was different from my regular procedure and the result was slightly decreased audio output.)
How (and why) do scientists cool things down to (close to) absolute zero? The key is to slow down molecular motion. Here is a short TedEd video that explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aL9YyRx1A
Video 2B: Supercritical Water (31 min)
Here is the template page you will need to print for video 2B: HPT101 Lesson 2B template page
Video 2C: Granite, SCW, and the Great Deep (29 min.)
Here is the template page you will need to print out: HPT101 Video 2C template page
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Suggested activities for this lesson:
Activity 2.1: Try the water molecule phase change simulator that I used in the lesson:
Activity 2.2: VIDEO LAB (that you can also do at home)
Here is an easy way to prove that increased pressure really does result in increased temperature, and that a sudden release of pressure causes immediate cooling. The increase and decrease will be just a few degrees because we don’t have fancy machines, only plastic bottles and plastic fizz keepers. (Fizz keepers can be purchased inexpensively at grocery stores.) This video shows the whole experiment if you can’t do it yourself. (Video runs only about three minutes.)
Activity 2.3: A coloring page for those of you who like to color
Here is a coloring page called “No Rain Before the Flood” which explores the idea that the water cycle we have now might have started after the Flood. Do we know this for sure? No, it is a theory. However, we do have a verse in Genesis that says a mist came up twice a day and watered the face of the earth. (We also have the fact that apparently there had never been a rainbow in the sky until after the Flood because God used it as sign that there would never be a similar flood.) Click on the link below to download a printable PDF page.
No Rain Before Flood Coloring Page
NOTE: If you are particularly interested in this topic of whether it rained before the Flood, you can read Dr. Brown’s response to this question on page 477 of the online 9th edition of the book.
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FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES for students using this course for credit:
READING in the text: Try reading pages 126-127
VIDEO TOUR:
If you like chemistry and are interested in seeing lab equipment that generates super critical water to produce nano-particles of various compounds, click here.
VIDEO LAB #1: Cooling Potatoes (Surface Area to Volume Ratios)
You can actually do this lab on your own if you have some potatoes and a digital oven thermometer. (Don’t use a medical thermometer! It won’t go high enough.) However, you can also watch the video and let me take the temperature of the potatoes, and you can simply record the data as we read off the numbers. You will need download and print this chart: HPT101 Lesson 2 Cooling Potato Lab sheet
When you are ready with your data sheet and a pencil, watch this short video and write the numbers as I say them. (If you are confused about how to record the data, watch the first minute of the second lab video. I have my chart filled out and you will see where to put the numbers.)
Now you’ll need to complete the rest of the lab sheet. If you need help, here is a video where I explain what to do:
VIDEO LAB #2 ICE CUBES DEMO
This lab is also about surface area to volume comparison, but here they use ice cubes of different shapes. The idea is the same– the greater the surface area, the faster the heat transfer. (The video runs less than 3 minutes.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwvkltFYQPs
VIDEO LAB #23 DIY tube of super critical carbon dioxide
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! He is using a special type of glass tube, and even then he is taking a risk that the tube will explode. However, it is a great video showing how ordinary people can do amazing science just using simple tools and materials. It is unusual to see CO2 as a liquid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z-KbcLs-yo
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FROM THE Q & A:
We talked about whether there was rain before the Flood. HPT predicts that there was no rain, but that (like Genesis states) a mist rose up from the ground to water the earth. Were there clouds? Probably not, but we don’t know. Was the earth protected from the sun’s rays. Somehow it must have been. (Something for one of you to research some day!) The atmosphere would have been pristine and clear, no dust. Rain droplets need dust to form. After the Flood there the atmosphere changed forever. It is interesting to note that when God said that he would never again flood the earth, this was because it was physically impossible for this to happen again– the storehouse of water under the crust was gone.
