A better understanding of emergent phenomena like the wetness of water, where the properties of a system can't be explained by those of its constituent parts, could unravel some big mysteries
THE next time you get caught in a downpour, don’t think about how wet you are getting – but how you are getting wet. Rain is, after all, just molecules composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and there is nothing wet about hydrogen or oxygen on their own. There isn’t even anything wet about a single water molecule. Put lots of them together in the right conditions, however, and you will get wet.
The wetness of water is an example of an “emergent” property: a phenomenon that can’t be explained by the fundamental properties of something’s constituent parts, but rather manifests only when those parts are extremely numerous. Emergent phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and a proper grasp of how they come about could hold the key to solving some of our biggest mysteries., a neuroscientist and author based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
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