This goes from the ocean to as simple as a glass of water. Are certain molecules bigger and heavier and therefore sink to the bottom while smaller ones float on top? If there is water in a glass and I pour more in, does the added water push the other to the top, sit on top of the original or is it truly just random and it mixes in and settles where ever it does and there’s no ryhme or reason to it
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There are currents in the ocean caused by temperature changes and the rotation of the earth. A water molecule is just that. They aren’t bigger or smaller.
In the glass of water. The temperature differential will be the primary order of where the molecules go until equilibrium is reached. And then it’s just random.
No there are no “bigger and smaller” water molecules. They’re all H2O, and atoms have a defined size.
In the ocean, the layers are sorted by density (and therefore by temperature). As water cools, the individual molecules stay the same size but they’re bouncing around less so they pack closer together and the overall liquid gets more dense, therefore heavier, therefore sinks compared to regions of warmer less-dense water. But this is not individual molecules growing, shrinking, rising, or falling.
For your pouring water in a glass question it’s helpful to remember that molecules in a liquid are a lot like a ball pit full of balls. They’re all touching their neighbours, but there’s no attachment between them and they’re free to rotate, slide past each other, whatever. So for pouring water into a glass of water, imagine dumping a big bin of balls into a ball pit from like 50 feet in the air. It’s just random mixing when they land. Some will stay on or near the surface, some will be carried deeper into the mass of balls in the pit. It’s just random collisions determining what ends up where.
They’re all constantly moving around based on the different forces acting on them. Gravity pulls down on all of them about equally. Intermolecular forces tend to hold them together and rotate them some. Surface tension on the side of the glass tries to hold particles near the walls still. Temperature gradients cause higher energy particles to move faster and move upward. So even in just a glass of water you’ll get some particle circulation.
If you pour into a glass of water, the falling stream has significant downward momentum. It will push down into water in the glass until it loses enough energy pushing other molecules out of the way. The water in the glass will get pushed aside and upward. Try it with a some food coloring in the water being poured and watch how it moves.
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