Melting Point

The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends (usually slightly) on pressure and is usually specified at standard pressure. When considered as the temperature of the reverse change from liquid to solid, it is referred to as the freezing point or crystallization point. Because of the ability of some substances to supercool, the freezing point is not considered as a characteristic property of a substance. When the "characteristic freezing point" of a substance is determined, in fact the actual methodology is almost always "the principle of observing the disappearance rather than the formation of ice", that is, the melting point.

Read more about Melting Point:  Examples, Melting Point Measurements, Thermodynamics, Freezing-point Depression, Carnelley’s Rule, Predicting The Melting Point of Substances (Lindemann's Criterion), Open Melting Point Data

Famous quotes containing the words melting and/or point:

    We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
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    When we are in love, the sentiment is too great to be contained whole within us; it radiates out to our beloved, finds in her a surface which stops it, forces it to return to its point of departure, and it is this rebound of our own tenderness which we call the other’s affection and which charms us more than when it first went out because we do not see that it comes from us.
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