How Trees Bend the Laws of Physics

Trees create immense negative pressures of 10's of atmospheres by evaporating water from nanoscale pores, sucking water up 100m in a state where it should be boiling but can't because the perfect xylem tubes contain no air bubbles, just so that most of it can evaporate in the process of absorbing a couple molecules of carbon dioxide. Now I didn't mention the cohesion of water (that it sticks to itself well) but this is implicit in the description of negative pressure, strong surface tension etc.

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  • trees
  • tree
  • transport
  • water
  • transpiration
  • transpiration pull
  • tall
  • height
  • pressure
  • osmotic
  • osmosis
  • capillary
  • capillary action
  • surface tension
  • negative pressure
  • redwoods
  • cohesion
  • veritasium
  • cgpgrey
  • periodic videos
  • poliakoff
  • physics
  • botany