by Snero » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:51 am
one easy way of looking at it from an atomic level is to think about molecules going around all over the place. As you add heat, you excite them and they take up more room, they move around more, this is a gas. As you cool things down, the molecules get sluggish and move less, they take up less room, this is a liquid. If you cool things down ever more these molecules take up even less room, they never stop moving (unless you hit absolute 0), but they move less and less and take up even less room and you have a solid. The reason water is different is that instead of just colapsing, water is able to build structures when they stop moving enough.
P.S. +1