Bob asks: > Why do we use wetting agents if water IS wet? damn, I have been trying to wet a bucket of oil for ages, THAT'S what I needed.. a wetting agent! > To me the phrase "water is wet" is absurd. Wet is the property of > something in contact with or containing (as a sponge) water. > Water is water. Wet is wetted by a liquid - often but not always > water. > Some substances in contact with water are not wetted ... As a chemist I knew pointed out.. liquids can wet things. Solids cannot, gasses cannot. Wetting is a common description of the actions of a liquid to penetrate and impregnate or coat something else. here's an interesting one - why are some things transparent and not others? Why glass (a liquid) and quartz and sodium chloride (solids) and not metals (except some when liquid), sulphur or silicon salts? it's the sort of question to cause eminent professors of physics to pale, but one worth exploring.. karl
