Re: world with less air pressure - survivable?

On Nov 26, 10:50 am, Brian Davis <brda...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm pretty sure that water will evaporate more quickly into a
low-pressure gas than into a high-pressure gas...

I've got to think about that - I'm not sure, but it seems odd to me.
How does a water molecule "know" what the total pressure is, with
respect to it leaving the surface? It's my understanding even the
approximation of the partial pressure of water vapor external to the
fluid playing a role isn't strictly speaking a good way of thinking
about it: evaporation is just a balance between flux rates (vapor
molecules rejoining the fluid, and fluid molecules overcoming weak
bonding to escape the fluid).

It makes sense to me- if there is a low air pressure above the water,
then the escaping air molecules will have a higher mean free path, and
can get farther away from the liquid before hitting another air
molecule and possibly getting knocked back towards the pool.

But I barely scraped by in statistical mechanics, so.....
.

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