RIDDLES!

Sir Gannon · Post by **Sir Gannon** » Sat May 25, 2002 4:09 am

ok if you can awnser this I will give you one ingot ( you can probably get this ; P )

I can be hard and I can be soft.I can be like air yet I can be as hard as rock.

what am I ?
first one to awnser wins good luck

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Sat May 25, 2002 4:16 am

Water.

Sir Gannon · Post by **Sir Gannon** » Sat May 25, 2002 5:11 am

first off i dont know how two of the same topics got up(weird) and second sorry damien your to late peter lonin got it in like 5 mins ( in game) but come on people lets hear some more. And lets make it interesting by adding bets like i did.

martin · Post by **martin** » Sat May 25, 2002 9:12 am

what about oxygen?
what about nitrogen?
what about iron?
what about quicksilver?
what about gold?
what about...?

all of them can have the same properties.

besides, a rock usually is much harder than ice (moh's hardness scale).
i don't like riddles which have a non-unique answer but one, which is considered the only "correct" one, because it leads to miss-education somehow. *EVERY* material can melt or can be a gas, it only depends on the temperature and the preasure. there's nothing special about water (except for the fact, that water has its highest density at 4°C under normal preasure, where it is fluid; that means, that ice (solid water of a certain crystall structure, there are more than just one "ices" made of H2O!) is lighter than fluid water, which is often referred to as "anomaly of water".

martin

Emhyr van Emreis · Post by **Emhyr van Emreis** » Sat May 25, 2002 10:38 am

hehe it at least can hardly be helium, as this is fluid only from -269 to -270 K, and those temperatures are quite unprobable in Illarion

GMcFly · Post by **GMcFly** » Sat May 25, 2002 1:04 pm

I have del the other thread. ( the shorter one )
I think one is enough

Thanks for reading GMcFly

Sir Gannon · Post by **Sir Gannon** » Sat May 25, 2002 3:06 pm

thanks GMcfly

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat May 25, 2002 10:36 pm

I think what he means by the hard and soft is how when you stick your finger into water, it is soft, but if you fall from a high place into water, it is like concrete. I dont think he meant the ice phase when he said hard.

Erdrick · Post by **Erdrick** » Sun May 26, 2002 3:44 am

Yikes, give him a break, Martin, he didn't hurt anyone.

(Edited by Erdrick at 3:45 am on May 26, 2002)

Likwid Air · Post by **Likwid Air** » Sun May 26, 2002 5:27 am

The point of riddles is to confuse people. I think I can safely say he has.

martin · Post by **martin** » Sun May 26, 2002 9:33 am

when you stick your finger into liquid nitrogen, it is soft as well.
when you jump into it from a sufficient high place, it's "like concrete" as well (which simply isn't true, it's just because of the moment of inertia of the molecules in the fluid.
however, there are certain materials, which have a property named "structure viscosity", which means, that they are liquid at certain conditions, but become solid under preasure. so you can on the one hand swim in it, on the other hand you can, if you "jump" around on it, "walk" over it. this sounds unbelievable, but it's true.

martin

ps.: (kanns nicht in englisch sagen: konzentrierte staerkeloesung ist zb. strukturviskos)

Galdriel · Post by **Galdriel** » Sun May 26, 2002 9:57 am

to add on this materialscience:

there are also "substances", that are able to bear much strain in the form off preasure, but if you just shake them a little bit, they liqify. this is called thixotrophy and is quite an important thing. nature invented it in the glacial sediments of some clays, who seem to be absolutly solid at first sight. this effect is also used in some hairstylers, to make the hair stand at strange angles.

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sun May 26, 2002 6:30 pm

You guys are thinking far to hard on this one.

BTW: He means at one condition, not at different conditions.

(Edited by Astral at 11:30 am on May 26, 2002)

martin · Post by **martin** » Sun May 26, 2002 7:08 pm

we are thinking correctly. that's the point.
that's exactly why i meant that i don't like such riddles with "sloppy" answers: very often, people are misslead by such things and start to believe in strange things because they don't know it better...
there is nothing special about water in this case. there are nearly an infinite number of materials and substances which have exectly the required properties, such as water and your addition ("He means at one condition, not at different conditions.") shows one result of this.
what's the difference between, lets say, quicksilver and water for this case? nothing. (we could play that for *ANYTHING*!)

i think, that's an important thing. there's nothing special about water (the only "special" thing is hidden in it's phase diagramm

).

martin

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sun May 26, 2002 7:12 pm

Well most riddles have a couple possible answers to them, but it is usually the most obvious correct one that wins.

I see your point though, this one does have quite a few more answers than the usual riddle