Question

how is water different from most liquids

Answer 1

how many liquids do you know that aren't a solution of water? what is milk really made off?

elemental liquids are hardly common.

polar bonding, i think,is the key. the way that water can store its energy in terms both of kinetic (temperature) and internal potential energy.

and so it can operate as a heat sink or source. with a real time lag that drives the planet's climate.


question is - where did \(H_2 O\) come from in the first place!!!

Answer 2

Water does something funny at about 4 degrees celsius, I can't remember what it is, though. I think it also expands on freezing - most things contract as they are cooled down. At the risk of stating the obvious, water dissolves things which will dissolve in water. And that is quite a lot of things.
Would liquid mercury dissolve things in the same way ? Probably not.
It could be that water has a "friend" in the world of organic (ie carbon based) chemistry benzene. I seem to remember that benzene is to the organic world, what water is to the inorganic world.
What is your body really made of ... well when you get thirsty, water seems to work to re hydrate you. Which of course makes me a big drip, because I'm mostly water, one way or another. Well, I'll just have to live with that as best as I can !

@IrishBoy123 Well, the chemical formula came from some **** to give holy innocents such as me a headache ! But is your question asking about the origin of the elements H and O, along with the rest of the periodic table, or is your question asking about how the Hs and the Os " found each other", so to speak, and then "decided" to bond in that funny way.
I have absolutely no idea about any of what I've just said, not really ... it just gives me a wry smile.

Answer 3

yes mate, i mean the compound

they say comet or comets

or supernovae, maybe

Answer 4

"Water does something funny at about 4 degrees celsius"
It has its maximum density at 4 C. Which means as water on the top of a lake cools (by the air above absorbing heat) to 4 C, it sinks down to the bottom of the lake, and the end result is that the top of the lake eventually freezes. That layer of ice acts as an insulator against the air for the lower levels of warmer water, preventing them from freezing, and giving the aquatic life in the lake a place to survive.

Without this property, if water just got more and more dense as it cooled, as most substances do, lakes would freeze solid from the bottom up, killing everything in the lake.

I've always thought it's a pretty fascinating property of water, and that without this property, life on Earth may not have been able to exist in the first place.

Answer 5

@IrishBoy123 exactly. And most other of the few other liquids at room temperature cannot be consumed by humans. Oils, gasoline, bromine etc.