Why is oxygen a gas but iron a solid?
Everything is made of particles that never stop moving. Heat them and they move faster, until they break free of each other: solid → liquid → gas. How hot that takes depends on how strongly the particles hold on to each other. The particle box starts with water. Change the substance and drag the temperature: at 20 °C, which are solids, which are liquids and which are gases?
Asked by calcali
1 answer
At 20 °C: iron and sodium chloride are solids; water, ethanol and mercury are liquids; oxygen is a gas. Oxygen molecules barely attract each other, so it boils at −183 °C, while iron holds together until 2862 °C.
by calcali