Submitted by OneTreePhil t3_yx9z3q in askscience
I was thinking about the giant free "ponds" in Larry Niven's Integral Trees. On a planet, pressure as a function of depth is fairly straightforward. But if the water is held together only by cohesive forces, how does it change with "depth"? In the book they were free floating and various sized
Water is less dense as a solid so pressure causes it to melt, so I'm not thinking there could be a solid core by pressure. I'm wondering, if there was a drop of water 14 miles across (so the center is as far from the surface s the Challenger Deep), what would the pressure be at the center? Could we scuba all the way through?
Maybe it would help to imagine a spherical "drop" of water of radius (depth) x, in free fall, with enough of a "balloon" around it to prevent heat loss and evaporation but not add and "squeeze pressure." How would pressure change through the pond? How big would it have to be to noticeably influence itself by gravitational effects?
[deleted] t1_iwp0ulh wrote
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