Friday Fun Facts About Water

In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge he states, “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Water is the lifeblood of our planet. Life as we know it could not exist without water. So today I thought we could sit back and have a nice cold glass of water and learn some fun facts about this very important resource.

Fun Facts About Water

• The next time you pop the top on that 2 liter bottle of Coke you might be surprised to know that it takes five liters of water to produce that tasty soft drink.
• Almost everything we eat or drink contains some percentage of water. Milk 90%, Bread 30%, Meat 75%, Eggs 73%, Cucumber 95%, Lettuce 95%, Tomatoes 95%, and Potatoes 75%.
• There is also a tremendous amount of water that we don’t see. About 400 miles below the surface of the earth in the earths mantle is an ocean’s worth of additional water.
• Every hour the oceans evaporate 13 trillion gallons of water.
• As you rake your leaves this fall you might want to appreciate that tree a little more. A single acre of trees send enough water into the atmosphere each day to fill an average swimming pool.
• Do you like your water pure? Pure water would be so pure that you wouldn’t like drinking it. It would absorb all the minerals in your mouth. So water producing companies add minerals to make it more palatable and safer to drink.
• Two thirds of all water used by humans is used for agriculture.
• You can thank water for that tasty popcorn you enjoy. Heating the 14% of water inside the kernel vaporize the water into steam the pops the grain.
• No water, no cell phones or computers. Today’s microchips are so small that pure water must be used to wash away any impurities that would interfere with the pathways of the circuits that allow the device to work.
• How does a microwave oven work? Water. Water molecules in your coffee spin about a billion times a second that produces heat that cooks the surrounding food.
• As water freezes it becomes 9% less dense as ice than as water and that explains why ice floats while sitting in your adult beverage.
• Antarctica is the world’s longest glacier.

Some Final Thoughts

Water. We boil it to purify things. We freeze it to preserve food, produce ice for beverages. We wash our cars and ourselves with it. We cook with it. Most automobiles could not run without it. Most every product we enjoy either contains some water or water was used somewhere in its production.

Water isn’t safe everywhere, everyday. But in the majority of the US you can open any tap and feel pretty confident that what comes out will be pure and safe to drink. There are few places in the world where this is true. So drink up and renew your appreciation for our water.

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