Something being wet is a material surrounded by water
So if I set my hand in water it’s not wet because it’s not immersed? What if it’s not water?
Can other liquids be wet? If I dump water into a bucket of gasoline, is my gasoline wet?
If I mix a soluble powder into water, like sugar, do I have wet sugar or sugared water?
Do they have to be in contact? Is a phone in a bag in water wet because it’s surrounded by water, or dry because there’s air between it and the water?
What about those hydrophobic materials that can be dunked in water and come out dry?
What about non-liquid phases of water? Is steam wet? If I dump water on ice is there a difference in how wet it is?
The common colloquial definition of “wet” is “to be touched by a liquid”. The scientific is for a liquid to displace a gas to maintain contact with a surface via intramolecular forces. Water becomes a better wetter if we add soap because it no longer tries to bind to itself instead of what it’s wetting.
Neither of these has the water itself being wet, but you can have “wet ice”.
Let’s not pretend that a more scientific sounding colloquial definition is actually more scientific.
but its more of a simple definition however if you went more technical by biology and chemistry laws, wetness is about adhesion (liquid to solid surface contact) and water is cohesive (attracted to each other) but if you want to get reallyyyy into it you might tell me about mercurium, have you seen mercurium? because its freaking cool btw chemistry ftw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upRM7ykQloI
the reason why mercurium wont wet things is because its cohesion is stronger than its adhesion, so any liquid that happens to be like this, this is why
So if I set my hand in water it’s not wet because it’s not immersed? What if it’s not water?
Can other liquids be wet? If I dump water into a bucket of gasoline, is my gasoline wet?
If I mix a soluble powder into water, like sugar, do I have wet sugar or sugared water? Do they have to be in contact? Is a phone in a bag in water wet because it’s surrounded by water, or dry because there’s air between it and the water?
What about those hydrophobic materials that can be dunked in water and come out dry? What about non-liquid phases of water? Is steam wet? If I dump water on ice is there a difference in how wet it is?
The common colloquial definition of “wet” is “to be touched by a liquid”. The scientific is for a liquid to displace a gas to maintain contact with a surface via intramolecular forces. Water becomes a better wetter if we add soap because it no longer tries to bind to itself instead of what it’s wetting.
Neither of these has the water itself being wet, but you can have “wet ice”.
Let’s not pretend that a more scientific sounding colloquial definition is actually more scientific.
you’re right about this
but its more of a simple definition however if you went more technical by biology and chemistry laws, wetness is about adhesion (liquid to solid surface contact) and water is cohesive (attracted to each other) but if you want to get reallyyyy into it you might tell me about mercurium, have you seen mercurium? because its freaking cool btw chemistry ftw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upRM7ykQloI the reason why mercurium wont wet things is because its cohesion is stronger than its adhesion, so any liquid that happens to be like this, this is why