Question

1.You watch water falling from the top of a waterfall to the bottom. How would you characterize this physical phenomenon in terms of spontaneity? What if you wanted to move the water from the bottom of the falls to the top—how would you characterize that reaction?

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

A spontaneous event (or reaction) is a change that occurs under a specific set of conditions. A ball rolling down a hill, the water falling down in a waterfall, and the dispersion of the smell of perfume when sprayed in a room (expansion of a gas), are all spontaneous events. So based on this logic, this would be a spontaneous event because of the gravity acceleration.

Now, if we want to move the water from the bottom of the falls to the top it would be a nonspontaneous process because a nonspontaneous process is a change that not occur under a specific set of conditions.