141–150 of 192 posts
It doesn't say how to get the water back from the powder.
Also, the coating is gas permeable, so you could boil the liquid out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume you mean cell membranes (cell walls are in found in plants, fungi and bacteria and made from polysacharides). However, it seems like an impermeable wall is less the issue than trans-membrane structures which facilitate selective transport of different species (ions, molecules, etc).
doesn't the fact that dry water balls absorb gasses imply that the membranes are at least partially permeable?
Apparently one can make dry water with a blender - mix fine silica powder and water in a 1:19 ratio (by mass) and put it in a blender for a few minutes. I'm not going to risk my blender to try it, so who's first?
Blenders can be replaced. I would worry more about silicosis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is amazing. They both give pretty compelling arguments. Can anyone else throw anything else into the ring? Is a fish wet?
There's water in the air, so everything in the air is actually wet based on that line of reasoning.
That reminds me of how acetylene is stored for transport --- dissolved in acetone, which is then absorbed into a porous nonflammable substance.
Throwback to the greatest debate of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDdRrMVEnA
This is amazing. They both give pretty compelling arguments. Can anyone else throw anything else into the ring? Is a fish wet?
One could make an argument for why it might be acceptable to describe that cup as "wet", but in day-to-day parlance with normal people, it would be confounding to refer to a full cup as "wet". "Full" would be a much more salient description of the state of the cup. Describing it as "wet" would only cause people to go "huh?" and you'd have to explain your reasoning.
Save for mathematical terms like "isosceles triangle", words don't have inherent meaning. They're shortcuts for us to more conveniently refer to a swath of individual things or events that share some common characteristics.
This is easier to see with really abstract words. Imagine trying to define whether a specific action is or isn't "honorable", or "moral", or "meaningful". There are no axioms from which we can derive a universal litmus for whether an action fits under any of those categories. Different cultures have their own interpretations, and the peoples comprising those cultures would have differing interpretations, and even for the same person, their interpretations of a word may change from one moment to another.
With more physical terms like "wet", or "Scotsman", or "Ship of Theseus", it can be less obvious that words are abstractions for individual instances of things, and that abstractions fray at the edges. There never was such a thing as the Ship of Theseus; there were certain configurations of atoms that people thought of as "the ship" that bore a certain relationship with another configuration of atoms that people thought of as "Theseus", that was referred to as the "Ship of Theseus" for the sake of convenience, and most of the time, it sufficed.
Throwback to the greatest debate of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDdRrMVEnA
This is amazing. They both give pretty compelling arguments. Can anyone else throw anything else into the ring? Is a fish wet?
A fish is covered by water.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is amazing. They both give pretty compelling arguments. Can anyone else throw anything else into the ring? Is a fish wet?
>They both give pretty compelling arguments. Until someone can find a definition of "wet" from a respectable source that states an object cannot be fully submerged in a liquid, the guy sitting down has no argument. He seems to be trying to make the argument that to be wet means a liquid is clinging to you, rather that you occupying the liquid's space. Anyone?
Merriam-Webster: a : consisting of, containing, covered with, or soaked with liquid (such as water)
American Heritage: 1. Covered or soaked with a liquid, such as water: a wet towel.
OED: 1. Covered or saturated with water or another liquid.
Ironically, most dictionaries have fish and submarines easily wet, but don't do a great job of handling the situation where you just get a few drops of rain on you, when you're a little bit wet. They use "covered with," which to me suggests they're only talking about when you're thoroughly wet or submerged.
I wonder if it would make a good fire retardant. The water would heat up and make steam and burst out along with some CO2 trapped in it.
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/28498
Reading the abstract, I don't know if he tested it as a fire retardant or suppressing agent, but that's obviously the idea. I think the challenge was more in making dry water on demand.
Applications towards aerogels ?