Language alert
Sometimes people talk about 'solid
particles', ‘liquid particles’ or ‘gas particles’,
as though there are three types of particle, but this is incorrect:
 |
There are no ‘runny’
liquid particles or ‘hard’ solid particles. |
|
The particles of a substance do
not have different properties when
the substance is in different states. |
Particles of a substance in the gas state are just more energetic
than particles of the same substance in the liquid
state.
This is another example of how a phrase can inadvertently
reinforce an incorrect model, in this case one which suggests
that particles of a substance in the liquid or gas state
are somehow different from particles of the same substance
in the solid state. In order to avoid this, we do not refer
to ‘solid particles’, ‘liquid particles’
or ‘gas particles’. We have not said anything
about what individual particles are like, because the properties
of a sample are determined by the collective properties
of the particles, rather than the properties of individual
particles.
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