Hard water is water that has high mineral content (in contrast with "soft water").
Hard drinking water is generally not harmful to one's health, but can pose serious problems in industrial settings, where water hardness is monitored to avoid costly breakdowns in boilers, cooling towers, and other equipment that handles water. In domestic settings, hard water is often indicated by a lack of suds formation when soap is agitated in water. Wherever water hardness is a concern, water softening is commonly used to reduce hard water's adverse effects.
Read more about Hard Water: Sources of Hardness, Effects of Hard Water, Measurement
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or water:
“A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amount of hard work is too severe for it.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (18441911)
“It is with artworks as it is with wine: it is much better when we do not need either one, when we stick with water, and when out of our own inner fire, the inner sweetness of our own soul, we turn the water over and over again into wine ourselves.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)