I wanna say Bill Nye had a little contraption that explained this phenomenon. A cup with a piston on one end that vibrated. The top part of the cup had a ring in the center where little balls in the cup could fit. The piston represented the temperature (energy). Even at a lower temperature, some balls could randomly fly into the little hole and into the other partition. Turning the temperature up (increasing the speed and power of the piston) made more balls more frequently “evaporate.” I wish I could find that demonstration again.
It’s actually not a bad question, just one people don’t really think about. Why does room temperature water sublimate?
It’s because the temperature is an average, and some molecules at the surface have enough energy to break their polar bonds.
Pretty sure Bill Nye taught me this. Substitute teachers aren’t playing the good stuff anymore
I wanna say Bill Nye had a little contraption that explained this phenomenon. A cup with a piston on one end that vibrated. The top part of the cup had a ring in the center where little balls in the cup could fit. The piston represented the temperature (energy). Even at a lower temperature, some balls could randomly fly into the little hole and into the other partition. Turning the temperature up (increasing the speed and power of the piston) made more balls more frequently “evaporate.” I wish I could find that demonstration again.
Water doesn’t sublimate. Sublimation is solid to gaseous phase change.
sublimation is poorly defined in our context.