Why is water's volume smallest at 4 Celsius?

• Because density of water is max at 4 deg Celsius.
• 11 years agoHelpfull: Yes(1) No(3)
• As the temperature of liquid water is reduced, random movements of the water molecules are likewise reduced. At 4 C, molecular motion has been diminished to the point where the hydrogen bonds that held them together in the liquid phase are beginning to settle into an optimum (best) arrangement that will ultimately bind them together in the ice latticework at 0 C. From about 4 C to water's freezing point at 0 C, the molecules are no longer able to so easily slip past each other as they did in the liquid phase. They begin to really "feel" the intermolecular attraction of hydrogen bonding which occurs between the hydrogen atoms of one water molecule and the oxygen atoms of nearby molecules. Thus, they begin to take on an orderly crystalline arrangement that we recognize as ice. The ice latticework simply takes up more space than the slightly more compact and disordered liquid state. Water expands when it freezes
• 10 years agoHelpfull: Yes(1) No(0)