this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
67 points (92.4% liked)
Science
13206 readers
7 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What, in your opinion, is the semantic difference between the words plastic and polymer?
What is your word of choice to distinguish between naturally occurring and lab-made polymers?
It depends on the context. Sometimes plastic is good for that, but in this case I don't believe that it is.
Plastic is not a rigorous term. When discussing specific plastics it's petty much always better to describe specifics, because plastics are too diverse of chemistry to do anything else.