Talk:Saturation vapor pressure

I deleted the sentence "Frequently vapor pressure and saturated vapor pressure are used synonymously." because it is not correct. In meteorology, climatology and in fact all fields I know of, there is an essential difference between the 'vapor pressure' and the 'saturated vapor pressure'. In fact, it's the difference between a fair day and a rainy day! This sentence could be very misleading. --Michel M Verstraete 21:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In vacuum systems or space systems where outgassing is a concern, the term "vapor pressure" is used to mean what you call "saturated vapor pressure". The pressure of a vapour out of equilibrium is simply a "partial pressure". --Yannick 05:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I completely disagree with Michel M Verstraete. "Frequently vapor pressure and saturated vapor pressure are used synonymously" is factually true. It has nothing to do with the "difference between a fair day and a rainy day". Most real-world, practicing chemical engineers, industrial chemists, and other engineers working in the fields of oil refining, petrochemical production and natural gas processing use the terms "vapor pressure" and "saturated vapor pressure" interchangeably (i.e., to mean the same thing). I, for one, fail to see any real difference between the two terms.

This article is entitled "Saturation vapor pressure" and the lead-in paragraph leads us to believe that it applies to any liquid, whereas, in actual fact, it seems to deal only with water vapor in the ambient atmosphere and it also seems to be oriented primarily to the usage of the term by metorologists, perhaps some thermodynamicists and perhaps some purist physicists. Perhaps, it would be best to re-name this artcle as "Saturation vapor pressure of water in air" so that it is differentiated from the existing Wiki article of Vapor pressure. - mbeychok 21:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]