Odd Thought in re Condensation...
So, if you have a closed box with some water in it at a certain temperature, any liquid water will evaporate until the vapor pressure is reached - trying to maintain equilibrium. Once the partial pressure of water vapor reaches the equilibrium vapor pressure, if we have an open container of water in the box, even though some water molecules will evaporate from the liquid, an equal number will recondense, and there's no net evaporation.
If you raise the temperature of just the pot of liquid water, more will evaporate, increasing the pressure beyond the equilibrium, and some of the water will condense out on the walls of the box. If we cool the pot, vapor will condense out from the atmosphere of the box onto the sides of the pot, the same way it does on an iced drink on a humid summer day.
But the surface of the liquid is also cold, and we know water molecules hit there and condense all the time, only now the rate of evaporation doesn't keep up with it any more.. Does this mean that on a humid summer day, there's water condensing out of the air in the room INTO my iced tea??
If you raise the temperature of just the pot of liquid water, more will evaporate, increasing the pressure beyond the equilibrium, and some of the water will condense out on the walls of the box. If we cool the pot, vapor will condense out from the atmosphere of the box onto the sides of the pot, the same way it does on an iced drink on a humid summer day.
But the surface of the liquid is also cold, and we know water molecules hit there and condense all the time, only now the rate of evaporation doesn't keep up with it any more.. Does this mean that on a humid summer day, there's water condensing out of the air in the room INTO my iced tea??