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Bruce E. Poling

LOCATION: Toledo, OH, United States


Professor and Chairman, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Toledo, Ohio. Coauthor of The Properties of Gases and Liquids.

Primary Contributions (1)
Figure 1: Phase diagram of argon.
in physics, one of the three principal states of matter, intermediate between gas and crystalline solid. Physical properties of liquids The most obvious physical properties of a liquid are its retention of volume and its conformation to the shape of its container. When a liquid substance is poured into a vessel, it takes the shape of the vessel, and, as long as the substance stays in the liquid state, it will remain inside the vessel. Furthermore, when a liquid is poured from one vessel to another, it retains its volume (as long as there is no vaporization or change in temperature) but not its shape. These properties serve as convenient criteria for distinguishing the liquid state from the solid and gaseous states. Gases, for example, expand to fill their container so that the volume they occupy is the same as that of the container. Solids retain both their shape and volume when moved from one container to another. Liquids may be divided into two general categories: pure liquids and...
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