• Question: Why is water wet?

    Asked by anon-193397 to Morwenna, Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 10 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 10 Nov 2018:

      I didn’t know the answer to your question but did some research and ended up in a bit of an internet hole – apparently water is not actually wet!

      Water is a liquid, and one of the properties of it is that it can make other solid materials wet, but it’s not actually wet itself. So wetness is more like the experience of touching water, rather than something that water is itself.

    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      Wetness is our description of what we feel when we put our hand in water. Saying water is wet is like saying that wood is hard or fire is hot.

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