this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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Murdered by Words

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Responses that completely destroy the original argument in a way that leaves little to no room for reply - a targeted, well-placed response to another person, organization, or group of people.

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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Since water is touching itself, wouldn't that make it wet by that definition?

[–] No_Change_Just_Money@feddit.de 26 points 4 months ago

"Most scientists define wetness as a liquid's ability to maintain contact with a solid surface, meaning that water itself is not wet, but can make other sensation. But if you define wet as 'made of liquid or moisture', as some do, then water and all other liquids can be considered wet."

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/is-water-wet 9 Nov 2023

[–] missphant@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 months ago

My favourite answer to this is Emergence, which was explained well in a recent kurzgesagt video.

Basically Emergence dictates that a group of things (like H2O molecules) can form something greater than the sum of itself (wetness). In the molecules wetness is not a thing, but the interaction of water with something else creates wetness. This concept cannot reasonably be boiled down to the molecular level, it only exists on this plane of existence.

[–] OrlandoDoom@feddit.uk -3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

If something is not wet, we call it dry, still waiting for someone to tell me water is fucking dry.

I'm just talking about the wetness of water here, I support abortion rights.

Edit: most comment replies I've had on here and it's about water and if it's wet. We're so mundane.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 12 points 4 months ago

What about gases, are gases wet or dry?

You say a gas is wet if it contains water, ok what about if the gas contains mercury, is that wet? Is pure liquid mercury wet or dry?

[–] Meron35@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

People have been describing wine as dry for ages

[–] OrlandoDoom@feddit.uk 1 points 4 months ago

Also cranberry juice, which tastes like it doesn't want to be wet.

[–] ninja@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I've had the 'can you make water more wet?' conversation before. The answer we arrived at varies based on the definition of wet so we had to define wet first.

We concluded that wetness is usually judged by how liquid something is or how much liquid it has with it. Our liquidity was based on viscosity so it's possible to make a liquid more wet by decreasing viscosity. Viscosity can be altered by adding a different viscosity liquid to it. There are things less viscous than water so in adding them you can make water more wet. Viscosity can also be changed by changing the temperature. As temperature increases viscosity decreases until water becomes a gas and dissipates into the air. We got a bit stuck here since at this point we no longer considered the water to be wet but did think that the air was wet. There was wetness, but since the mix was more air than water the water's wetness was decreasing. We concluded there was some nebulous level of humidity that would be considered wet, but it would be wet air rather than dry water.

Then we looked at it the other way. At low temperatures the viscosity of water increases until it eventually crystalizes into a solid. As long as it stayed frozen it had none of the properties we considered wet. Completely frozen water could be considered dry.

[–] CheezyWeezle@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Then what about dry ice? That's frozen carbon dioxide, so it is waterless ice. It is called dry because it lacks any water. Is water ice more or less wet than dry ice?

[–] ninja@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

The way we thought of it, while frozen it'd be the same amount of dry. It's called dry ice because it's dry after it melts.

[–] Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world -3 points 4 months ago

It's neither because the concept isn't applicable. It's like dividing by 0. You can string the symbols together, but they don't mean anything.