Solid

Solid

Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). It is characterized by structural rigidity and resistance to changes of shape or volume. Unlike a liquid, a solid object does not flow to take on the shape of its container, nor does it expand to fill the entire volume available to it like a gas does. The atoms in a solid are tightly bound to each other, either in a regular geometric lattice (crystalline solids, which include metals and ordinary water ice) or irregularly (an amorphous solid such as common window glass).

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Famous quotes containing the word solid:

    Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness; for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation of the word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    The twelve Cells for Incorrigibles ... are also carved out of the solid rock hill. On the walls of one of the cells human “liberty” is clearly inscribed, with the “liberty” in significant quotation marks.
    —Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
    squandering your unquoted mirth,
    which keeps the ground, and never soars,
    while jake retorts, and reuben roars;
    tough and screaming, as birch-bark,
    goes like bullet to its mark;
    while the solid curse and jeer
    never balk the waiting ear.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)