this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Oh please someone argue this with me!
I love semantic bs!
Water is touching water, so therefore water is wet!
Not that Thomas isn't a piece of shit regardless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting
Fair enough. I was not expecting something I could not understand
Basically, the process of making something wet requires a liquid (usually water) to actually stick to it, through intermolecular forces. That's slightly more narrow a requirement than the "needs to touch water" that's commonly thrown around. A lotus flower or water repellent jacket doesn't get wet, even if you spray water on it, the droplets don't actually stick to the surface.
Now, water molecules stick to each other as well, that's called surface tension. But wetness, at least in physics, is defined at an interface between two mediums, a liquid and a solid, or two liquids that don't mix
I learned something new today
More reasonably, "wet" is often used as an adjective describing something that is liquid. Wet paint is, of course, wet.
Saying water is wet because it touches water sounds like "Fire is on fire because it touches fire". It just sounds fundamentally illogical as you're talking about a state of matter, not the matter itself.
I'm not a scientist, just throwing in my view on this
Well fire has a specific definition of something being oxidized, so does being wet.
Like are you wet if you were a molecule of water surrounded by water?
It seems, to me at least, any molecule that wasn't water surrounded by it is wet.
Which is still a definition for a state (or process/chemical reaction). Something that causes the state/reaction (like oxygen, salt and water on metal) cannot be a state in itself, therefore the logic tells me water in itself cannot be wet as it's not reacting with something else
If you drive down far enough, I don't think "wet" even remains to be a property something can have. As was mentioned, what is wetness to an individual molecule? It must be surrounded? Are all molecules "wet" with air, then?
"Wet" as a concept I think is really only useful to people communicating to each other what to expect. For instance, if I asked what was in the fridge, and you said "nothing", it would be weird if I came to correct you: "duh, actually, there is a speck of dust in the corner. And not only that, it's actually completely full! Of air." This is because what you meant was, "to eat."
A "wet" towel will feel damp and watery to a person picking it up in a way almost indistinguishable from water itself, and this is enough to say that both are wet. But, if I had spilled water, and you wanted to know how many things had gotten wet—well, these are a different set of expectations, and so maybe I wouldn't count the water.
If we come up with a definition for this process, then yes, why not.
But you see, if I ask you for a wet towel, it will sound normal. If I'd ask you for wet water, I'd look mentally questionable
I think this is because water is always wet. It's a bit redundant.
That is, unless,
We had a lot of ice. And, "wet water" was a very silly way of asking for the melted kind. I might think you bumped your head, but I would know what you meant.
"Is water wet" is not a complete question. I don't know what the asker's expectations are, so a satisfying answer is not really possible.
This is not too different from the ship of theseus being a difficult, brainteasing paradox until you clarify what exactly is meant by "is the ship of theseus." "Which of these two boats is registered to me by the boat authority" is a much simpler question to answer.