Monday, April 5, 2010

Thermal properties

Water also has some physical properties relating to heat that add to its usefulness as a biological solvent.
Heat Capacity
For one thing, it has an unusually high specific heat, or heat capacity. Heat capacity, you should remember, is the amount of heat or the number of calories required to raise the temperature of one gram of that substance by one degree Celsius. Water's high heat capacity means that is can absorb or lose a relatively large amount of heat without undergoing a large change in temperature. Since many biological functions will not take place outside a narrow range of temperatures, water's ability to absorb and lose heat without a large temperature change provides an organism with a protection against the ill effects of a large external temperature change. Another way to say this is that large amount of water in our bodies stabilizes the temperature of our bodies.

Done by ; MIRAAA ;D

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Monday, March 22, 2010

MiraFateenNadia

Almost all of the energy that drives the various systems (climate systems, ecosystems, hydrologic systems, etc.) found on the Earth originates from the sun (Figure 1). Solar energy is created at the core of the sun when hydrogen atoms are fused into helium by nuclear fusion (Figure 2)। The core occupies an area from the sun’s center to about a quarter of the star’s radius. At the core, gravity pulls all of the mass of the sun inward and creates intense pressure. This pressure is high enough to force the fusion of atomic masses.
The energy emitted by the sun passes through space until it is intercepted by planets, other celestial objects, or interstellar gas and dust। The intensity of solar radiation striking these objects is determined by a physical law known as the Inverse Square Law (Figure 3)। This law merely states that the intensity of the radiation emitted from the sun varies with the squared distance from the source. As a result of this law, if the intensity of radiation at a given distance is one unit, at twice the distance the intensity will become only one-quarter. At three times the distance, the intensity will become only one-ninth of its original intensity at a distance of one unit, and so on.

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