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From: tom@stl.stc.co.uk (Tom Thomson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.chem,sci.physics,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Osmosis - the cause at the molecular level.
Message-ID: <3703@stl.stc.co.uk>
Date: 5 Nov 90 18:28:54 GMT
References: <1990Oct28.115303.7221@newcastle.ac.uk> <4396@pkmab.se> <29046@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
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In article <29046@boulder.Colorado.EDU> eddy@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Sean Eddy) writes:
>Osmosis is a colligative property. That is, osmotic pressure is
>dependent on the *number* of particles in solution -- *not*
>their size, mass, etc. 
The interesting thing is how much space they take up, not how big
they are:  it's not as if they were closely and rigidly packed so
that the space they take depends on their size.   Even with BIG
molecules in solution, the average radius is SMALL compared with
the mean free path.
 
Tom