What is the difference between an extremely thick liquid and a solid? At which point does the difference stop mattering, it at all?
In: 58
The most viscous liquid is, from engineering pov, still a liquid. You can’t trust it to keep its shape over time.
On the other hand, if you design something with plastic, rubber, or similar materials, despite them being solids, their plasticity is to be kept in mind and they may flow, change their shape into their container’s shape, or being squeezed away from their place. Which are all properties of a liquid. This is the most close example I can imagine to the liquid vs solid border.
Digression:
All in all, remember, the definitions we use are for ease of defining things, matter does what it wants despite our description.
I think the first argument I won vs my manager was about replacing a spring that I declared being plastically deformed (elongated). He rightfully said that the material and the spring itself are by definition not plastic. To which I demonstrated that the spring did what it wanted to do, without caring of our definitions. “Collective control balance spring replaced, aircraft ok for service” was my next written line. This said, my manager and the materials we used did their job the other 99.99999% of the time. So yeah… definitions… good the 99.99999% of times.
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