Chapter 1.5, Problem 3QQ

Interpretation Introduction

Interpretation:

Among the given options, the number of phases the heterogeneous mixture of water, ice, and motor oil forms has to be chosen.

Concept Introduction:

The study that is concerned with composition, transformation, and characteristics of matter is known as chemistry.  Anything that occupied space and has mass is known as matter.  Amount of matter present in the sample is termed as mass.  Matter includes all the things that are naturally occurring things and synthetic materials.

Matter can also be classified based on their chemical composition as pure substance or a mixture.  Pure substance contains a single kind of matter and by physical means it cannot be separated into any other kind of matter.  In other words, pure substance contain nothing else than the substance alone.  Mixture is a combination of two or more pure substances and the important thing is that the pure substances retain its chemical identity even if it is mixed with other substance.  This is because they are not chemically combined rather they are physically mixed.

Mixtures can be of two types.  They are homogeneous and heterogeneous mixture.  Homogeneous mixture is the one that contains only one visible phase while heterogeneous mixture is the one that contains visibly more phases and each of the phases has different properties.  Heterogeneous mixtures do not have the same property throughout while homogeneous mixture has.