Why Glass And Ice Are Transparent

In solids, molecules are mutually attracted very strong, which is why they keep the same shape. Although the solids molecules cling to each other, they still trembling a little (in nature nothing is completely immobile). In liquids are links between molecules looser, they pass and slide next to each other. Therefore, the liquid flowing and can completely fill the container in which they are.

The molecules in gases are not attracted to each other. They fly in all directions, run around at high speeds (eg. the average speed of the hydrogen atoms in the air at 0°C is 5800 km/h). Between the molecule has many empty spaces, so the man can move through the air, but it does not feel it. Will some material to be solid, liquid or gaseous state, generally depends on the temperature. At normal atmospheric pressure on the surface of the earth, water is a solid (frozen) on a temperature of 0 ° C or lower. Between 0°C and 100°C, the liquid is water. At 100°C and up, water is a gas (vapor).

Why is glass transparent?

Gases should be transparent, and solids do not. However, some solids, such as glass and ice, clear as air. The light is absorbed in a collision with molecules of most solids. One part of the light energy remains in the solid body in the form of heat. However, most of the light is reflected – to be sent back from whence it came.

Therefore, the solid body is seen, but not seen through it. Glass is a special type of solid material. Glass molecules absorb photons of light, and then emit photons which move in the same direction as those which had previously absorbed. Therefore, the glass is transparent – light passes through it.

Why ice and water are transparent?

In water and other nearly colorless liquids story is similar. Their molecules passed most of the light that passes through them, while some absorbed and heats the liquid. In gases, which are molecules often over long distances, the light can be a long way and that it does not meet with any molecule.

In fact, a lot of sunlight coming down to the Earth passing through the empty space between the molecules in the atmosphere. The light that encounters gas molecules, is dissipated. White light enters the molecules and in it splits on colors of the rainbow. Blue is the strongest among the colors that come out of them. Therefore, it seemed that the gases are blue, as they do in the sky above the Earth. But in fact are transparent.