Question

Define liquid



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Answer 1

At room temperature, examples of liquids include water, mercury, vegetable oil, ethanol. Mercury is the only metallic element that is a liquid at room temperature, although francium, cesium, gallium, and rubidium liquefy at slightly elevated temperatures.

Answer 2

A liquid is a state of matter, which does not have a definite shape but have a definite volume. The molecules of liquid, are however, slightly loosely packed, but the intermolecular forces between the liquid molecules are strong enough to keep the constituent particles together, and thereby keeping its volume constant.

Now, you will must say, whats about area then?

Take a container. Fill it with water. Measure the volume of water first. The depth of water (height attained by water inside the container) can also be measured.

Now, for convenience, let V volume of water takes a height of H metre.

Then, area of the liquid with respect to the container (i.e., inside the container) will be volume of water divided by the depth of water (height attained by water inside the container).

Now, clearly, depending upon the shapes of container, area will vary for liquids because of variation of height. You should note a careful thing that the volume of liquid is fixed, so it will remain "V" in any shapes of container. But, depending upon size of container, height attained by liquid inside those containers will vary and as a result, total area of the liquid will vary.

Thus, liquid does not have any fixed area. It varies from containers to containers due to differences in height (or depth) of liquid.

Now, if we pour certain volume of liquid into floor, it will remain flowing, and you will observe that no definite shape it acquires. It remains spreading in the floor in no specific shapes, but by flowing in a zig-zag way. From here, you cannot calculate the area however. For that some supports of container (like beakers, bottles, etc.), required.

$\bold{CONCEPTUAL\:PORTION}$

Certain times, we ask, molecules of liquid do not remain fixed at their positions. But, actually, the molecules in a liquid move (or, flow) only within the boundary of the liquid, and as a result, doesnt change volume time to time like gases.