Eli5: If water can’t be compressed under normal conditions, then how does water pressure work?

183 views

Eli5: If water can’t be compressed under normal conditions, then how does water pressure work?

In: 18

14 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Others have already answered the question: water _is_ compressible, and yet this is mostly unrelated to pressure.

But let me give you a very simple proof that water can be compressed: it conducts sound as everyone can test in a bathtub or lake. Sound is produced by small differences in pressure that propagate as a wave. Anything that cannot be compressed cannot conduct sound. And indeed, even other types of compression such as pushing on a stick or pumping water into one end of a pipe are moving through the system at its speed of sound!

However, there are no proper substances that truly are incompressible; as more abstract examples, vacuum and black holes could maybe be used, both of which indeed do not compress nor conduct sound.

You are viewing 1 out of 14 answers, click here to view all answers.