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monsieurkaizer t1_j93pgtj wrote

Reply to comment by LogicalMeerkat in Was reading something related to Rock Salt mining. In places like the Himalayas where rock salt mining is done in cold temperatures, a lot of miners report burns. Why is it so that salt burns in a colder surroundings? Would it be the same reason why the salt ice challenge was so dangerous? by vvdmoneymuttornot

It is because they can't be molten. Molten means liquefied by heat. Cheese can be molten, because it exists as cheese and melted cheese. Ice cubes just melt into water. So they're no longer cubes, and maybe that's why it irks you.

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ParanoidMaron t1_j93q0ce wrote

>Molten means liquefied by heat.

... Ice melts thanks to heat.. into liquid water, ice is just solid water. Ergo, ice can become molten, as water and ice are the same material, just the same as aluminium is the same material molten or not.

It sounds wrong. It is not, technically speaking, wrong.

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Reliv3 t1_j93s6hd wrote

Yeah, I think molten is actually fine here. People are just used to using molten when describing melting materials which are solid at higher temperatures. Ice is a solid at much lower temperatures, so a state one may describe as "molten" will also exist at a much lower temperature.

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Patsastus t1_j946f5s wrote

It's more that "molten" is an extra descriptor used for the liquid state of something that's usually solid. So molten ice sounds fine, molten water sounds weird and tautological, because of the assumption that you mean liquid water the majority of the time you say "water"

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Fish_On_again t1_j94lrgk wrote

Temperatures are relative. There are many places on this planet where water in its molten state is very rare at times.

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[deleted] t1_j94dnn2 wrote

Molten is only really used with things that are hot and will solidify again at room temp.

For example there is molten chocolate and there is liquid chocolate(sauce). They have clear definitions and are straight up never used interchangeably. Its like a rectangle and square.

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