Question: Why Is Water Wet?

Rosie Goodburn answered on 26 Apr 2021: last edited 29 Apr 2021 8:47 am

Hi CrazyKazza. First of all, what does “wet” mean? Maybe wet means a combination of things that describe the physical properties of water? That could include how water is a liquid at room temperature, water feels cold, or how water is kind of clingy (like how it clings to clothes)! If we consider these one-by-one:
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1) Why is water liquid at room temperature? This comes down to something we call hydrogen bonds. If you imaging two water molecules (H2O) next to each other, the hydrogen of one molecule is a little bit attracted to the oxygen of the other molecule. This is because the hydrogen has more of a positive charge and the oxygen has more of a negative charge. This attraction is called a hydrogen bond. This fact about water actually is the reason for a lot of unusual things about it! And this includes why it is liquid at room temperature – the hydrogen bonds give water molecules enough sticking power that they don’t all evaporate off into a gas at room temperature.
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2) Why does water feel a bit cold when we touch it? That’s because water transfers heat away from your body faster than air. Water is a very good conductor of heat and this is largely because it is a liquid and this means that the molecules are more densely packed than in air!
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3) Why is water clingy?? Again, this comes back to hydrogen bonds – water clings or sticks to other things for the same reason it sticks to itself – because its molecules have one end more positive and the other end more negative so it is attracted to other things by these attractive forces!