Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Creative Example of Diffusion?!?
Kids playing in those ball bins at Chuck-E-Cheese's. The are the atoms/ molecules, the children are the energy/heat of the particles. If you had the bin half full with red and half full of blue (no pun intended), they would sit there and not mix. But when you add energy (children, who jump around and smash the , thus giving them velocity and momentum) the will eventually mix. Blue can mix around the blue ball side of the tank and not change the ratio of blue there, even though they are not in the same positions, but when they fly over to the red side of the bin, the ratio changes. Even though the balls are moving in all directions, and even same color balls are mixing with each other, only changes from one color side to the other can effect the ratio of colored balls on each side (balls hitting the side of the bin/ container bounce off, so most energy actually effecting a change is directed to the opposite side of the container). uming the children/energy are evenly distributed, the mixing will stabilize when the balls area at a 50-50 ratio, because at this point the bin looks uniform, and as was stated on changes from one color group to the other will effect the ratio, but now the bin is one uniform group or red and blue balls, so all the changes happening everywhere may change the position of the balls, but on average the mix will remain the same. The more children/energy you add the faster the ball will mix, since the average speed of the balls travelling around the bin will increase (fewer balls are sitting still, and more are flying through the around and smacking unsuspecting bystanders inthe face). Of course atoms don't sit still, but they can travel faster or slower than each other.
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