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I have asked this question recently: Why does evaporation take place? and I got a satisfactory answer, that temperature is macroscopic and is the average temperature of the object.

That said, why does the stone or steel not evaporate like water over time? Some stones have been out in the sun baking for millions or even billions of years yet they haven't really evaporated (although they may have got smaller due to erosion or some other geological effect).

Why is that?

Community
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2 Answers2

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Actually, solids have a pressure equilibrium but this pressure is in most cases very low so this is a process extremely slow.

Pierre Alvarez
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The chance that water will evaporate is greater than that of steel because of boiling point. The chance that a water molecule will get "bumped" to boiling point is higher than that of steel because steel has a higher boiling point. This doesn't mean that metals don't evaporate. They just do so very slowly.

Jimmy360
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