Return to Answer

##No, mostly## You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

###That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception### First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This statement is a common misconception supported even by some authoritative sources. However the logic behind it presumes that equilibrium behavior applies in dynamic scenarios which doesn't hold; more in the comments below.

"What really allows airplanes to fly?" has some excellent discussion on airfoils.

###Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure### If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

###Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?### In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.

No, mostly

You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception

First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This statement is a common misconception supported even by some authoritative sources. However the logic behind it presumes that equilibrium behavior applies in dynamic scenarios which doesn't hold; more in the comments below.

"What really allows airplanes to fly?" has some excellent discussion on airfoils.

Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure

If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?

In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.

##No, mostly## You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

###That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception### First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This statement is a common misconception supported even by some authoritative sources. However the logic behind it presumes that equilibrium behavior applies in dynamic scenarios which doesn't hold; more in the comments below.

###Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure### If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

###Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?### In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.

##No, mostly## You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

###That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception### First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This statement is a common misconception supported even by some authoritative sources. However the logic behind it presumes that equilibrium behavior applies in dynamic scenarios which doesn't hold; more in the comments below.

"What really allows airplanes to fly?" has some excellent discussion on airfoils.

###Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure### If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

###Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?### In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.

##No, mostly## You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

###That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception### First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This is the first common misconception listed in Wikipedia's article on lift (emphasis added):

Basic or popular sources often describe the "equal transit-time" theory of lift, which incorrectly assumes that the parcels of air that divide at the leading edge of an airfoil must rejoin at the trailing edge, forcing the air traveling along the longer upper surface to go faster. Bernoulli's Principle is then cited to conclude that since the air moves slower along the bottom of the wing, the air pressure must be higher, pushing the wing up.

But, this is the opposite of the truth. Rather than the wing getting pushed up due to the pressure differential, it's actually that there's a pressure differential because the wing is pushing the lower air down, compressing it.

###Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure### If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

###Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?### In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.

##No, mostly## You mostly can't boil water by spinning the glass. "Mostly" because some weird stuff is possible under extreme conditions like in a rotary evaporator; in such cases, whether or not there's "boiling" starts to become an issue of semantics.

###That explanation of aerodynamic lift is a common misconception### First, to correct a misconception:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the pressure in a fluid reduces when the speed increases(The airplane rises because the air above the airfoil moves faster than the air below it).

This statement is a common misconception supported even by some authoritative sources. However the logic behind it presumes that equilibrium behavior applies in dynamic scenarios which doesn't hold; more in the comments below.

###Spinning water in a glass can decrease pressure### If you spin a glass of water fast enough, you can get a vortex going in the center. This vortex is sorta like a tornado, with lower pressure in the center and higher pressure at the boundaries, against the glass.

In principle, if you do this fast enough, you could lower the inner pressure down to the static boiling point. Checking a phase diagram for water, it looks like water can boil at room temperature if we drop the pressure down to a just few percent of normal atmospheric pressure.

###Would additional evaporation be due to "boiling"?### In a classical sense, boiling is when a material in the liquid state reaches the point where it'll start turning into its vapor state with appreciable stability throughout its volume. Non-boiling liquids can still turn into vapor, but they usually do so at their boundaries, in which case we call it "evaporation" instead of "boiling".

The distinction between rapid evaporation and boiling kinda breaks down under extreme conditions since the classical sense in which we defined those terms no longer applies, but I think that most people would find the term "boiling" to be misleading in this case.