if salt and sugar do not appear to have a shape then why do we call them solid
Answers
because they have intermolecular force
It has to do with the size of the container in comparison to the sugar and salt crystals. If you take any solid object and put it inside a large enough container, it will appear to take the form of the container. But if you examine closely, the individual crystals are unchanged and in fact, have lots of space between them. A good way to view this is to take a jar and put rocks in until it's full. It will fill the space but leave pockets of air. Then take sand and shake it down into the jar. The sand will fill many of the spaces. You'd be surprised how much will go in. Once you fill it with rocks and sand, pour some water in. The water will then fill the spaces in between the sand. This will show that even though they appear to take the shape of a container, they aren't in reality. If they did confirm to the container, no sand would make it past the rocks and no water would make it past the sand.