If you add up the parts do you have the sum?
By urbandekay
@urbandekay (18278)
July 19, 2011 3:02am CST
Objects have properties, size, shape, colour, etc. It has been suggested that the properties of objects result from the properties of their component parts at the smallest level.
That is to say, that gross physical properties arise because of the properties and arrangement of the smallest particles.
Now, are there any properties that arise at higher levels of matter?
all the best urban
2 responses
@Adoniah (7513)
• United States
23 Jul 11
Intensive properties such as color do not have any effect on matter. Extensive properties such as mass and volume do not have any effect on matter. Melting,liquefaction,evaporation,condensation,solidification,freezing, etc, will alter these properties.
Are you possibly referring to the action of aerosols on clouds?
@urbandekay (18278)
•
23 Jul 11
No not at all, I am not talking about whether gross properties, intensive or extensive, (If those are real distinctions) have any effect on matter. Rather whether those properties are fully determined by the properties of matter at a minute level.
Let me give an example that may make it clear; Water has the gross property of surface tension, such property can be explained by the action of molecular attraction.
all the best urban
@greenfeathers (1206)
• United States
19 Jul 11
I had pursued that 'molecular infinity' idea back in the dippie hippie days. Honestly, it seems like a rational approach, to me, of infinity. But being a part of the pattern, as we are, there's little we can do but speculate. The folks I was hanging with at the time liked my notion (a reflection of my political/social attitudes) that we could be little more than an atom in a pile of dog pooh in someone's backyard..Enjoy!
