BRIDGMAN. — WATER UNDER PRESSURE. 



549 



have been shut up? The present conception of the atom as a planetary- 

 system of electrons would suggest that there are possibilities of enor- 

 mous change of volume within the atom itself, and that the compression 

 of the atom is going to continue uniform over a relatively enormous 

 pressure and volume range, just as under ordinary circumstances a 



TABLE XXXIII. 

 Vakiotts Thermodynamic Properties of Water at 22°. 



gas obeys Boyle's law for a relatively very gTeat range of volume and 

 pressure. The fact is that at high pressures the compressibility does 

 remain larger than the formula of Tumlirz demands, whether this is 

 due to a compressible atom or not. The same thing is shown also by 

 the curve of Figure 36 giving compressibility against pressure. The 

 tendency of this curve is to become asymptotic to some value greater 

 than zero, the compressibility changing very slowly at high pressures. 

 At 5000 kgm. the compressibility has dropped to 1/3 of its value at 

 atmospheric pressure, while at 10,000 it is 2/3 of its value at 5000. 



The compressibility curves for 0° and 22° also indicate one other 

 thing that would be expected, that at sufficiently high pressures the 

 compressibility will become independent of the temperature, or in 

 other words, that the dilatation will approach a value, probably zero, 

 independent of the pressure. 



