Solid or Liquid? ?

Question

Is marshmallow creme considered a solid or a liquid? just wondering.

Answer 1

Between solid and liquid the answer is solid. The question boils down to phase. Is the marshmallow in the solid phase or the liquid phase. The answer is clearly solid phase. Liquids take the shape of  their containers and are typically incompressible. Additionally, liquids cannot permanently exist in a complete vacuum. I do not think the marshmallow will evaporate in a vacuum.

The marshmallow is however a (non-Newtonian) fluid. As is glass, peanut butter and tooth paste.It does exhibit fluid properties. As does glass. Glass is a solid. It is in the solid phase. While in the solid phase it exhibits fluid properties.  All liquids are fluids but not all fluids are liquids. Gases are fluids too. All phases of matter can exhibit fluid properties. That does not, however make them liquids.

The guy AT illustrates exactly the pitfall to understanding of the difference(s) between fluids and liquids. This is why we call the field of study fluid dynamics and not liquid dynamics.

Bottom line:

The marshmallow is not a liquid

The marshmallow is solid

The marshmallow is a fluid

Gasses are not liquids

Gasses are fluids

Liquids are fluids

Answer 2

Solid.

Answer 3

The answer surprisingly, is a liquid, not a solid, glass also has the same properties, its rate of flow may be undetectable to most people, but it does flow, and can be verified by examining a very old window, as you will see the glass in it, is thicker at the bottom than elsewhere, it has flowed down ,in the direction of gravity, causing this thickening, over a period of years...

Custard is another one in question, if we mix a swimming pool full of custard, and we try to stand on it, then it behaves as a liquid, and we sink, but if we try to run across it we find that it reacts quite differently, in that it supports our weight for a brief period of time that we need to walk across it, or run...

In fact many types of glass remain in a free flowing liquid state inside the surface of a pane, and instantly become apparently solid if the glass is broken, this is certainly true of toughened glasses, which are toughened by rapid cooling, at the production stages...keeping the interior under pressure so that solidification does not take place, until this pressure is relieved by fracture...

A marvellous demonstration of this in physical terms, is the water, that freezes "instantly", if water is kept under heavy pressure it does not freeze even in large volumes, ( even at temperatures as low as -40C ), but when the pressure is released, then it suddenly freezes, all through the water body in question, however large an amount is involved, it is quite something to see it take place....

The physics of liquids causes many surprises, and what we see as solid, is often slow moving liquids, we live at a rate of time movement that makes it difficult to see the behaviour of some slow flow liquids take place...but temperature raises the rate of flow normally, if you gently warm marshmallows they become more like a liquid to us, and more fluid, we can then see for ourselves, fluid behaviour, because of the increased energy in the system.....

Answer 4

It is considered a solid!

Answer 5

If its solidified in the freezer- solid

If warm- liquid Mousse?