Why can you see through H2O as both a liquid and a solid but you cannot see through something like Au (gold) in a solid state? Is this a matter of density?
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Light typically interacts with materials by giving energy to the electrons in the material. Electrons aren’t allowed to have just any amount of energy, so light can only interact with a material if some electrons in the material are allowed to gain as much energy as the light has to offer. The amount of energy light has to offer is related to the color of the light.
Water has a few electrons that can accept red light, so large bodies of water can look slightly blue (because when you take away red light, blue is left). But other than that, water doesn’t interact with light very much. By contrast, metals (including gold) have some electrons that have a lot of freedom of movement, so they can interact with any color of light and are shiny. These electrons with freedom of movement also carry heat and electricity through metals, and hold the atoms together when you bend a metal object.
There’s actually a few metals that are less dense than water, and they’re still opaque and shiny. Lithium, sodium, and potassium would all float in water, but they’re also so reactive they’ll catch fire if they get wet, so you shouldn’t try that at home.
Also, if you have ammonia gas without any water and get it so cold it condenses, it’ll form a clear liquid that looks like water, and if you run electricity through the liquid ammonia, the moving electrons have a lot of freedom of movement so the liquid turns shiny like a metal. But ammonia gas is poisonous, so that’s another experiment you probably shouldn’t try at home.
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