Is ranch dressing a liquid or a solid? A physicist explains
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Do you wear a liquid or solid farm? Gabriel, age 8, Dyland, Florida
Imagine that you are having dinner. Try to pour some Wearing a farm On your plate to dip your vegetables in. You can direct the container upside down, but nothing comes out. It looks like solid.
So shake the bottle up and down, and a large vibrio of dislocating clothes flows and hit your plate. It looks like a liquid.
But wearing clothes does not spread throughout the painting, such as milk or any other liquid if it is poured. Instead, it maintains some shape, such as vegetables on your plate. It looks like solid.
But every time the solid carrot or celery is drowned at the wear point, it slightly distorts the shape of the point. You can even distort and publish the point, but the shape and hardening of the celery is not affected by this game. It looks like a liquid.
So, do you wear a liquid and steel farm? Or is it not?
I Professor of Physics and BiotechnologyMy research focuses on understanding materials that contain liquid and steel properties. Physicists call these materials soft material. In a laboratoryWe check what it makes biological materials such as the skin and Snot Quishy- and how we can create vital inspired materials that have the same wonderful properties. I also host the social media channel, Physics MamaWhere I ask my parents and I answer questions about daily life physics.
The basic cases of matter
To find out what is going on with clothes on a farm, you need to understand what Various material cases What makes each one unique. “The issue” is just the scientific word for “things”, which is anything consisting of microscopic building blocks Call And that Has a block.
You may have learned at school that there are three cases of the material: solid, liquid and gas. Think about the ice cube, a pool of water and fog. You may also learn about a fourth country, known as the name plasma.
These different cases are defined by how Very small molecules Create the matter They interact with each other. These molecules are very small so that you cannot see them with bare eyes. But their invisible reactions determine the properties of the materials you can see.
The molecules are physically linked together in a way that prevents them from moving in relation to each other. This is what makes solid materials solid and able to maintain a fixed shape.
The molecules in the liquid, on the other hand, are not associated with each other. They can move, wander around each other and mix themselves. This freedom of movement is what allows the fluid to take the shape of any container in it.
The molecules in the gas are completely free to move without colliding with other molecules in the gas a lot. Like the liquid, the gas will take the shape of any existing container and has no fixed shape. But unlike fluids and solid materials, gases can also change their size or size.
Plasma resembles gas but has more energy. This energy causes electrically charged particles, called protons and electrons, in collapse. The sun and stars are examples of plasma, as well as the material that Make neon signs glow.
Flexibility and wife
While solid materials carry their shape, they are not completely rigid. Links between molecules such as small springs, This makes hard materials flexible. If you push hard, it will be distorted – but it will bounce back to its original condition when it stops paying, like your rank when you bounce on your bed. Of course, this happens at the molecular level, so you cannot see it happens.
Although liquids change easily, they do Resisting this change due to friction Between liquid molecules while trying to overcome each other. This friction is called Viscosity. Liquids such as honey or drink are more viscous than fluids such as milk or water, which makes them more difficult to stir. Imagine an attempt to swim in a honeymoon swimming pool – delicious but difficult.
The fifth country
Wearing farm clothes is actually a state of the fifth material known as the soft material. The soft material can have properties for both fluids and solid materials, so material scientists say it is so D is. Other common examples of the soft material include yogurt, cookie dough, shampoo, toothpaste, ridiculous paste, kidnapper, mud, frost.
These materials are not completely solid and not completely liquid – they are a little bit of the two. You can pour the shampoo from a bottle, but if you put a little between your fingers and dismantling it, it will extend between your fingers. Cookie dough can carry its own shape, but if it is paid to it, it is deformed and does not bounce again.
Many sticky materials Caller thinning exhibitionWhich means that her wife reduces the more moving her. That is why shaking a farm sauce bottle or ketchup allows you to pour it-although before it was shaken, it was very similar to leaving the bottle. This is also the reason that the yogurt that looks solid and able to keep its shape becomes more like a liquid when it moves quickly.
Sponge materials Cutting thickness can also be shown They become more solid whenever you try to distort it. This is how Ooobleck, a simple mix of cornstarch and waterHe works. You can pour it slowly and immerse your hand in it, like any other liquid, but if you press or shake it.
A different type of molecules
The reason that these sponge materials have liquid and steel properties is that It is made of polymersLong particles, chain like. These long chains are intertwined, Like a bowl of spaghettiSo they are somewhat connected, such as molecules in a solid material, but they are also free to overcome each other, such as molecules in the liquid.
Most of the cultivated clothes purchased contains Zantham, a natural polymer used to intensify many foods.
So the next time you are trying to pour your farm clothes from the bottle, you can imagine Xantham GUM all intertwined together, making wearing clothes behave like solid. When you shake the bottle, you disassemble the polymers so that it slides and flowing across each other, allowing the removal to flow easily from the bottle and on your plate.
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This article has been republished from ConversationAn independent, non -profit news organization brings you facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. Written by: Ray Robertson Andersonand San Diego University
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Robertson-Anderson receives funding from the American National Science Foundation, the Air Force Research Office, and the National Health Institutes of Health.