Talk:Steam

Article split into "steam" and "water vapor"

No reason for the split suggestion was given so I removed it. --Tunheim 15:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason given was "the stuff about water vapor doesn't belong here; it already has an article. this article is about the condensed mist". — Omegatron 16:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see that one. I thought it was common to provide the rationale of a clean up template at the discussion page that the template in use points to. But I'm rather new to Wikipedia. Could you enlighten me on this? --Tunheim 10:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree this should not be split. That would just make 2 stubs. Prep111 15:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The word "steam" has at least 2 meanings. I'm not a physicist or chemist but it seems to me they are:

1. H₂O as a gas, ie, the molecules are independent. The gas is invisible. This seems to be the scientific and technical use of "steam". Synonymous with "water vapour" and "dry steam".
2. H₂O as hot droplets of liquid suspended in air and visible. Invisible gas molecules of H₂O will also be present. This is the common or popular use. Similar to "wet steam". (Seems to me the difference between wet steam and clouds/fog/mist is just temperature.)

Maybe the answer is:

1. Move info about the gas from the steam article to water vapor.
2. Make steam into an article about the hot suspended liquid and rename it wet steam.
3. Create a disamb page called steam.

I am not expert in the subject so maybe there is a better arrangement.

OED has for steam: "6. a. The vapour into which water is converted when heated. In popular language, applied to the visible vapour which floats in the air in the form of a white cloud or mist, and which consists of minute globules or vesicles of liquid water suspended in a mixture of gaseous water and air. (Also sometimes applied to the vapour arising from other liquids when heated.) In modern scientific and technical language, applied only to water in the form of an invisible gas. The invisible ‘steam’, in the modern scientific sense, is, when its temperature is lowered, converted into the white vapour called ‘steam’ in popular language, and this under continued cooling, becomes ‘water’ in the liquid form. dry steam, in Steam-engine working, steam containing no suspended vesicles of water: opposed to wet steam." Nurg 04:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard the term "wet steam", but it sounds like a pretty good proposal. — Omegatron 06:17, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Referring to the suggested course of action above:

1. 'Move info about the gas...' Support and provide a clearer top-of-page link to water vapour
2. 'Make steam ..article about hot suspended liquid...' support
   '...and rename as wet steam' strong oppose – the fact that 100s of pages link to this one is a consideration, but more important is the general WP principle that pages should have the name most commonly identified with the subject. I can imagine many people searching for 'steam', but very few for 'wet steam'.
3. Create a DAB page oppose. Steam (disambiguation) already exists, making 'steam' a DAB page too seems rather unnecessary.

Steam should include something about 'what steam is' but also cover the practical uses of steam and how it occurs in nature. Water vapour can cover the scientific aspects of the gas. Curiously, this is pretty much the case already. (I checked the two articles AFTER I wrote that, so maybe not much needs to be done after all... :o) )

EdJogg 10:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Nurg, the definition you provided from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was very enlightening and makes much sense. However, this doesn't fully clarify the situation of steam vs. water vapor. Would you, or someone else with access to the OED, be able to post the definition of water vapor? --Tunheim 12:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

OED: "water-vapour, the invisible aqueous vapour present in the atmosphere" Nurg 03:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I agree with EdJogg. A disambig link at the top of the Steam article is sufficient. It is the term most commonly associated with the suspended droplets. — Omegatron 19:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

'Wet Steam' seems to be causing some confusion. It is a mixture of the liquid and gaseous phases of H₂O (necessarily at boiling point). 'Dry Saturated' steam is pure gaseous phase H₂O at boiling point, and as such is more of a theoretical concept than something it is easy to make, as steam is likely either to contain some liquid on the one hand or to be superheated on the other, and dry saturated steam exists only on the infinitesimal boundary between the two. For example, a steam engine is described as either 'superheated' or a 'wet steamer'. Bill F 23:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just want to point out (sorry to belabor the point) that currently, the first paragraph in the steam article states "steam refers to vaporized water. It is a pure, completely invisible gas (for mist see below).", and the words "vaporized water" are a link to the "water vapor" page. The water vapor page then states "Water vapor, also aqueous vapor, is the gas phase of water." This suggests that the two concepts are precisely identical. Can everyone agree that this is incorrect? Xezlec 03:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am a physicist, and I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with you people. Steam and water vapor are completely distinct. There is no overlap, at all, ever. "Wet steam" is a tautology on the order of "sugary glucose". I have to question the motives and ethical outlook of a group of people who are willing to redefine words in the English language to obfuscate the difference between two different phases of matter. When you have a kettle on the stove, and you can see steam shooting out of it, that's liquid. The water vapor is invisible to the naked eye. --75.49.222.55 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see what what this discussion has to do with motives and ethical outlook although I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with a Texan physicist who hasn't the courtesy to sign in. Anyway to my knowledge, "wet steam" in common usage is synonymous with saturated steam. --John of Paris 21:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sheesh there, physicist- no need to get so touchy. Can't you see that while what you are saying is correct, the word "steam" has more than one meaning and usage? That is the essence of the entire controversy. I myself have to question the ethics of someone who shows up to a discussion like this and speaks down to people who, whether he likes it or not, are his peers.

Anyway, I edit and write science books for kids. We use the term water vapor to mean the gaseous form of H2O (the SLG forms being ice, liquid water, water vapor) Since I communicate with children, I explain that the steam they see coming out of the kettle is actually when some of the water vapor condenses in the air and forms tiny droplets. I point out that right at the base of the kettle you dont "see" steam, and that is the water vapor right there. I have to point out however that I have engineer friends who tell me how all elementary and secondary educational publishing is incorrect on this. They "are" physicists as well, and they have a different view of this because of steam tables and the like. TheMetalChick (talk) 15:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have also always been taught that water vapour is the gas formed when water is heated, and that steam is a suspension of liquid water droplets in air. These definitions were introduced to me at the age of 11 when I started high school, and perpetuated through GCSEs, A-levels, and four years of an engineering degree - but, only in verbal use. The reference tables engineers use in calculating energy transfers made using heated water are called "steam tables", and in this context steam clearly refers to what we were always taught was "water vapour" at least part of the time. There is an ambiguity in this which should be discussed, but my view is that the definitions we were given in school were probably given so consistently in an effort to remove this ambiguity from the terminology.

Having looked at the OED entry for "steam", I would suggest that their definition, being apparently written by non-scientists, and citing no references in the last hundred years or so, might not be as accurate or reflective of the newer attempt in current education to draw a division between "steam" and "water vapour" as it perhaps could be? Perhaps though, the easiest solution from an engineering perspective would be to rename the steam tables and call them "heated water tables" or similar, since they actually refer to water in a variety of states. Redcore4 (talk) 11:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• I hope this doesn't cause more confusion but discussion on Water vapor ("Scientific Discrepancies, Confounding factors and limits of knowledge" section) may indicate that this definition problem is known, and conveniently ignored / side-stepped by many others. A subsection of the Water Vapor article has been completely removed without explanation, the section included the phrase "this remains a particularly tricky and sometimes controversial factor in many fields of science". A lack of citation has been suggested as justification for the non-inclusion. But, surely, citation would be impossible (a bit like trying to prove a negative), if in fact the problem is regularly side-stepped, or put it another way worked around, as long as the results or outcome are good enough, nobody gets concerned, and nobody gets hurt. Except, that is, those trying to understand the subject, those who haven't been told about the work-arounds and fudges and approximations 79.76.157.17 (talk) 19:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Distinction btw "Steam" & "Water vapor" articles is not clear

Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why this is a separate article from water vapor? I understand that "water vapor," i.e. invisible H20 gas, is different from what we know colloquially as "steam," i.e. microscopic liquid droplets of H20 that have accumulated into a white mist that resembles a gas but actually is a liquid. But this article is very confusing. The lede seems to say that steam is water vapor. Perhaps, they are technically the same. But if there are to be two articles, then this one must be about the gas, and the other must be about the accumulation of tiny liquid droplets that resembles gas but actually isn't.

And, if I'm right in this distinction, then it must be made clear in this article's lede. The lede must say something like: "Steam is technically water vapor, but, colloquially, it's actually accumulated droplets of liquid water that form a visible gaseous-looking substance. This article is about the latter, colloquial meaning of 'steam.'" Something like this must be written in the beginning of the introduction to make the distinction between these two articles clear. Cause, as it stands, readers are going to have no clue why articles on gas-form water are split up. I certainly don't understand why -- after all, the intro flat out says "steam is water vapor."

Also, if there are to be two articles, this one must avoid overlapping with the other. In other words, the "steam" article should not talk about steam as water vapor at all, anywhere (reasonably speaking). That's for the "water vapor" article, not this one. Sure, as aforementioned, the intro should state that steam is technically vapor, but that statement should amount to one clause or sentence in that paragraph. And it should make clear that the content of this article isn't at all about steam as water vapor.

I don't know if I'm getting this right. I know I'm coming to this discussion very late, and, therefore, I'm not totally up to speed. So please do inform me of why these three articles have been split up. Thanks. Cheers, ask123 (talk) 04:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I was re-reading the article and noticed that it refers to steam as "invisible." First of all, I don't believe that the word "invisible" is one that is scientifically valid. Something can be "transparent" or "not visible to the naked eye," but that's not the same as being "invisible." Second, and more to the point, the distinction I was thinking of above clearly doesn't apply. Now it seems to me that this article is about "water vapor," and, therefore, I don't see why these articles shouldn't be merged. ask123 (talk) 04:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

For me this issue still rings true today, 13 years later. The opening paragraphs of the two articles seem near identical. If one is a subcategory of the other, this could be made a good deal clearer. (I don't consider myself competent to make the changes.) Wootery (talk) 20:27, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Water at STP?

"Water increases in volume by 1,700 times at standard temperature and pressure;..." What?

It is understood that boiling water produces water vapor, but this state for water is not at standard temperature or pressure. This bit needs to be re-written for accuracy, or possibly just for clarity. Indyola (talk) 04:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)