Last year, in eigth grade Introductory Physical Science, my book asked the question: If someone showed you a liquid in a container and claimed it was a universal solvent, would you believe him?
The answer the book gave was no, since if the liquid was a true universal solvent, meaning it can dissolve any and all substances in the universe, then no container could contain it.
However, I have always thought that a universal solvent could be contained if one of two conditions exist:
A) The solvent is able to dissolve all substances, but dissolves them very slowly
or
B) The solvent is already saturated with the substance the container is made of.
So, is the book wrong? Also, what other ways could the answer to the question posed in the book be yes?
Thank you very much, I appreciate everyone on this board.
Maybe the container is made of the same material as the solvent- for example, it’s the solvent in frozen form. (Does the universal solvent dissolve itself??)
Maybe the container isn’t actually touching the solvent, but using some sort of magnetic containment system (battery embedded in the container ;)).
Maybe the solvent is dissolving the container - in a few seconds, the universal solvent will be eating away at your shoes …
If the solvent was already saturated with the container material, then it wouldn’t be the universal solvent anymore - it would have been chemically transformed into something else.
I’d say the book is poorly worded. Water is sometimes referred to as the universal solvent but you already see the limits of that statemen. You show good critical thinking skills. Welcome to SDMB.
Maybe the solvent (and the inside of the container) are near absolute zero, slowing or halting the dissolving process (most chemical reactions slow down with decreasing temperature, and are effectively halted at absolute zero). If they can produce the universal solvent, reaching absolute zero should be easy
Thank you, I didn’t think of the solvent dissolving itself. Wow, thanks for the quick responses. I have not been sucked up to much in my life, I also thank you for that (ya gotta start somewhere).
Technically, I believe, water is referred to as the “universal solvent” because essentially everything reacts with oxygen.
Some things react slowly- glass, most plastics- and others react quickly. But from what I understand, the water in that glass you’re drinking IS, at that moment, slowly, imperceptibly, dissolving the occasional molecule of the glass.
In reading many of the “FOX Apollo Hoax” debunking sites, one page listed one reason Lunar soil can be determined not to have come from or made on Earth. It described tiny beads of pyrophoric glass, formed at the white-hot instant a meteor struck hardened lava. Such beads dissolve within a million years or so on Earth (IE, in an atmosphere, in contact with water/erosion, etc) but the ones on the Moon can be measured to be billions of years old.
I’d also discussed this “solvent” subject with a fellow who mentioned he’d asked a rocket scientist- a real one- what would be the best rocket fuel. The reply was “Flourine”, except that they can’t easily store, transport or use it, since it reacts with essentially everything. Metals, seals, glass, all plastics, lubricants…
Exactly. I’ll give you a question he can use to stump his Physics teacher, I read about it many years ago in Scientific American.
A research laboratory invented a way to produce superpure water, with only one or two atoms of impurity per ml. But they were absolutely stumped when it came to a way to ship the product to other labs. No matter what material they used, the water would dissolve some of the container and contaminate the sample. So material what do you use to package superpure water?
Superpure ice.
The lab made a bottle from the material with the least suceptibility to being dissolved by water (I forget what exactly, some sort of plastic). Then they froze it, and sprayed the interior with superpure water, which froze along the sides of the bottle. They sprayed several layers, to prevent any contaminants that were dissolved when the water was still liquid. They built up a barrier of superpure ice inside the bottle, then filled the bottle and froze the whole thing. They ended up with a block of superpure ice inside a layer of semi-pure ice inside a bottle.
The real trick is emptying the bottle. You have to melt it gradually from the inside towards the outside, carefully removing the water from the thawing center without touching the sides of the bottle.
