Category:Condensation

Con`den*sa"tion, n. Etym: [L. condensatio: cf. F. condensation.]

1. The act or process of condensing or of being condensed; the state of being condensed. He [Goldsmith] was a great and perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of selection and condensation. Macaulay.

2. (Physics)

Defn: The act or process of reducing, by depression of temperature or increase of pressure, etc., to another and denser form, as gas to the condition of a liquid or steam to water.

3. (Chem.)

Defn: A rearrangement or concentration of the different constituents of one or more substances into a distinct and definite compound of greater complexity and molecular weight, often resulting in an increase of density, as the condensation of oxygen into ozone, or of acetone into mesitylene. Condensation product (Chem.), a substance obtained by the polymerization of one substance, or by the union of two or more, with or without separation of some unimportant side products. -- Surface condensation, the system of condensing steam by contact with cold metallic surfaces, in distinction from condensation by the injection of cold water.