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berael t1_iuio4j0 wrote

Take the amount of water that's inside a human body and just pour it all into a big bag. It sloshes around a lot and feels like a liquid, right? Your question is asking why people don't feel like that.

Well, take all of that water, and split it up among several billion teeny tiny boxes. Put all those boxes together in the shape of a human, and it'll contain the exact same amount of water as the big bag did, except now it'll feel solid because the water is all held within objects which have shape and structure.

In an actual human, those billions of teeny tiny boxes are all of the cells in the body.

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PrionBacon t1_iuiqfmu wrote

>HK-47 : Query: Don't I? I was under the assumption that organic meatbags such as yourself enjoyed such forms of address.

>Player : "Organic meatbags"?

>HK-47 : Retraction: Did I say that out loud? I apologize, master. While you are a meatbag, I suppose I should not call you as such.

>Player : You just called me a meatbag again!

>HK-47 : Explanation: It's just that... you have all these squisy parts, master. And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn't drive you mad, I have no idea...

>Player : Neither do I, come to think of it...

From Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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Djuulzor t1_iuj4lqe wrote

I can also add that all these teeny tiny boxes are highly pressurized. In most cells, the pressure is around 3 bar, three times the pressure of our atmosphere. This means if you would take all the water in a body without this pressure it would probably be larger in volume than the actual body. Adding further to this, this pressure should also make all the structures in the body more rigid and less fluid.

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00zau t1_iujpb2g wrote

Think Bubble Wrap, but with water instead of air.

Bubble wrap is probably 50% air by mass (though you can't feel it because air is weightless in air) and like 75-90% air by volume... but you can't just waft it around like 'normal air' because the plastic gives it structure.

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ThenaCykez t1_iuimg7j wrote

Is a grape a solid? Is it more or less solid than a raisin?

A raisin is 15% or less water, and a grape is about 75% water. The difference in size is purely based on the removed water.

People, like grapes, can have physical structures that store a lot of water while having a relatively solid outer surface.

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eloel- t1_iuipadc wrote

People, like grapes, leak liquid when you bite into them.

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laz1b01 t1_iuiwcx2 wrote

Can confirm. I've had people bite into me and I leaked liquid.

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xavierwest888 t1_iuj8ffv wrote

A bottle of beer is like 95% water but if I hit you around the head with it you would probably not accept the excuse that I was just washing your hair.

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[deleted] t1_iuiw381 wrote

[removed]

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CFDietCoke t1_iuj22jg wrote

Because the water is locked up in zillions of cells, which are surrounded by cellular membranes, giving them a stiffness. A Tomato is 95% water. But it feels solid when you pick it up. Same reason

Think of it this way: Take a basketball. Cut a hole in it. Fill it with water. The basketball is now something like 90% water. But when you touch it, it feels solid. Shrink that basketball down to celluar size, and put a zillion of them together to make a human, and you have a solid feeling human that is mostly water.

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jimthesquirrelking t1_iuimo8x wrote

States of matter are determined by the energy of the matter and how its bond conform inside the material. The human body holds a rigid shape and doesn't just puddle into whatever container it's in. How soft pliable or squishy something is doesn't matter, only how it does or doesn't hold itself together

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PaulRudin t1_iuj47ya wrote

Suppose you have a huge metal water tank filled with water. You can probably get pretty close to 100% water by volume. But the tank is solid, and will feel very much like a solid if you hit it.

From the outside you can't immediately tell that the tank is mostly water.

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Randvek t1_iuj4u2k wrote

There a lot of good answers here but I’ll add this note: humans aren’t 70% water. We’re closer to 50% (females tend to be lower, males tend to be higher), but even that percentage will fluctuate quite a bit during the day.

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Burstar1 t1_iuj9xl3 wrote

Think about a Car Tire. It's composed of 70% air by volume but certainly doesn't feel like air does it? That is how much of a effect the other 30% can have.

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Marcel_Labutay t1_iujgqb4 wrote

It really doesn't behave like any other solid. Your muscles, your skin, all your body parts are not fully solid, they have stretch and squish. Bones and teeth are the exception, because skeletal cells utilize minerals to build a stiff, rigid, structure.

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space_fly t1_iujxhgp wrote

Have you ever seen these water balls which absorb a lot of water and become really big? They still feel solid, even though they are full of water. Human body is basically the same.

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