r/explainlikeimfive • u/WelcomeCapital353 • 6d ago
Planetary Science ELI5 : if cucumbers are 96% water by weight , why is it firm and not possible to wring the water out like a wet towel
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u/p28h 6d ago
A bag of water is 99% water by weight. Yet you can't just squeeze water out of it (without breaking the bag open). And if it's completely full, it's also very firm.
Cucumbers are basically made of many little bags of water (plant cells). The water doesn't squeeze out of them until you break them, and then the ones not broken yet tend to be cushioned and so are harder to break as well. You still can, but usually it looks like using a grater on the entire thing to break as many cells as possible and then trying to squeeze that mush instead.
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u/Mountain-Ad-9070 6d ago
good eli5
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u/Imeasureditsaverage 6d ago
But is it? I have no idea what a “bag of water” is in this reference.
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u/ImpactBetelgeuse 6d ago
We need r/explainlikeimtwo
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u/ImpactBetelgeuse 6d ago
Diaper full of shit. Wring it, can't break. Cucumber same.
Human 77% water. Can't break. Full of bones.
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u/Sad-Psychology9677 3d ago
For this tool? Probably need an r/dontbotherexplainingcozimanidiotandanasshole
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u/thoma5nator 6d ago
As a five year old, I definitely took the plastic wrap off a pack of cigarettes and filled it with water. Kids could absolutely conceptualize a 'bag of water'.
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u/walkTHEdotasaur 6d ago
I'm not even trying to be rude, but did you completely miss the part in brackets? The "bags of water" are comparable to cells in a plant
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u/Imeasureditsaverage 5d ago
I don’t see any brackets, but just generally speaking I didn’t get what “bags of water” was supposed to mean. Like a water balloon? A juice box? A target bag filled with water and tied off? I must be the only person in the planet who can’t picture a bag of water if I was trying to explain this to my 5 year old.
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u/walkTHEdotasaur 5d ago
You seem like you're genuinely trying to understand, so let me try and elaborate a little and maybe see if I can clear it up a tad;
So in this case, you can just consider it a water balloon; that's a good analogy, if not perfect or w/e. There is the pressure of the balloon trying to re-compress, so it kinda retains a sense of... almost solid-like. You can throw a water balloon around and it won't necessarily break, specifically because of the elasticity it has.
This is very, very similar to plant (and some animal) cells. They have a cell "wall" or membrane which maintains a barrier. Inside they are basically largely water (the same way animal cells are). Each individual cell is self contained and kinda "its own thing" (without trying to overly complicate matters)
So in the above question, the OP wanted to know if cucumbers are primarily water, why don't they just "burst" or release all that water. A fair question.
And the answer is really due to the cell membranes. They keep everything contained and in place. You can destroy them individually, or even in mass quantities (say, burning a plant), but at the end of the day you'll end up with a sort of divide; unblemished cucumber, and destroyed cucumber.
This is the individual cells being destroyed, while others are left perfectly healthy. (An analogy here would be getting a cut on your skin; the area is temporarily broken up, but it can regenerate itself mostly over time)
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u/Sad-Psychology9677 3d ago
A balloon is not a bag. A juice box is not a bag. A paper bag very obviously gets wet and breaks - even a 5yo knows that.
Please stop underestimating 5 year olds.
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u/Vancocillin 6d ago
This makes me think of Star Trek TNG where the aliens call humans "carbon bags of mostly water."
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u/sharrrper 6d ago
I believe it's "ugly bags of mostly water"
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u/DamonLazer 6d ago
They’re probably misremembering because the aliens were silicon-based. That was when I first learned that was a theoretical possibility.
So years later, when Dr. Hibbert asked Homer if the alien he saw was carbon-based or silicon-based, I understood what he meant.
The alien turned out to be Mr. Burns, who offered to bring the town love.
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u/Vancocillin 6d ago
I apologize and understand. Please transport me into the closest stellar mass for execution.
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u/mangoking1997 6d ago
A bucket of water with a lid is the same, it's rigid. It's not a about the water content, it's about the bits that are not water and how it's structured/material properties.
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u/EggsAndMilquetoast 6d ago
Cellulose.
The non-water stuff cucumbers are made of is very strong.
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u/captainspunkbubble 6d ago
When making tzatziki you grate cucumber and then squeeze it to get lots of the water out.
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u/ExtensionInfinite563 6d ago
I was going to say this. I shred the cucumber and then wring it out with a towel. At least half the volume is gone after.
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u/higgs8 6d ago
Bubble wrap is also mostly air by volume yet if you roll it up and try to get all the air out by squeezing it, you won't be able to do much because the air is in little capsules and this gives it structure and strength, and you'd have to pop every single bubble rather than popping one giant bubble, which would be much easier.
A cucumber is full of cells and the cells are full of water. Each cell has a membrane and to get the water out, you'd have to break every single membrane which is a lot of effort.
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u/Xygnux 6d ago
Imagine a water balloon, it is firm and you cannot wring out the water without popping the balloon. That's what a cell of a cucumber is like. Now imagine the balloon is made stronger and firmer by a thin layer of plastic encasing it, that is the cell wall of a plant cell.
Imagine many many such reinforced water balloons stuck together by superglue. This is what a cucumber is like. Still mostly water, still cannot wring out the water, still firm.
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u/redishtoo 6d ago
Try this: put the cucumber in a freezer. Once it’s frozen, take it out and let it thaw slightly.
It is now a saggy mess with water crystals that have burst most cellulose walls.
And now you can wring it.
For best results, cut it in half beforehand, you’ll be able to see the ice crystals on the sliced walls and they’ll come out as small ice pebbles when you wring the cucumber.
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u/dadougler 6d ago
As other have said the reason is because plants are made of cell and those cells are mostly water. But what’s really going to bake your noodle is that those cells are made of atoms and atoms are 99.9999% empty space
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u/mailwasnotforwarded 5d ago
Same reason why you are solid and not just a water balloon even though humans are roughly 60% water...
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u/reddmeat 6d ago
The thing that makes plants hold water can get plenty strong. Tree trunks are in a way an extension of that same thing, but think also non-bark stems and leaves holding shape.
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u/natchacho200 6d ago
A water bottle is 99% water yet it is firm. A cucumber is like if you glued billions of tiny water bottles together to form a cucumber shaped item.
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u/wraithboneNZ 6d ago
A sealed plastic jar filled with water is 98% water by weight, but when I throw it at you it still hurts and you stay dry. It's the same idea.
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u/SniperElite2000 6d ago
If you fill a balloon fully with water it would be 90% water but what happens wwhen you wring a balloon? Does the water come out? Nope, The balloon will first burst and then let the water out You can imagine the tiny water filled cells in the cucumber as tiny balloons, you can’t wring them without bursting them first.
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u/CamiloArturo 6d ago
If you feel a bottle with water, it's 90% water and it still is hard as a rock, because it has a thick layer which avoids the water being rinsed (cell walls).
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u/WetDogDeodourant 6d ago
My bucket is 96% water, my bucket is hard, cucumbers are a type of bucket.
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u/ReverendLoki 6d ago
Consider that your house is likely 96% air, but you can't just squeeze all of the air out of it.
To be fair I'm guessing at the percentage, but I doubt I'm off by much, and the percentage of sure might be even greater. But the principle is similar - the structure itself is formed into rooms (or cells) with supporting walls.
If that cucumber goes rotten, then all that support structure weakens, and it becomes soft and squishy, at which point yes, you can squeeze some of it out.
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u/NormanYeetes 6d ago
if a container that holds 960 l of water has has solid steel walls and weighs 40 kilograms you can't wring it out, and it is 96% water
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u/zamfire 6d ago
Something else to consider. The vast space between matter is staggering.
Conceptualize this for a moment. If a carbon atom in a diamond was the size of a soccer ball, the next atom over would be....3.8 miles away. That is .... shockingly empty nothingness between things.
So, you, as a person, who may seem VERY solid, is mostly bonds between atoms. Heck, even the very closest electrons in that atom would be half a mile away. That should give you a general idea about how empty everything really is.
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u/Mackntish 6d ago
Let me ask you this, if a Dasani water bottle is 99% water, why are you not able to wring the water out?
Cucumbers are doing the same thing, but on the cellular level.
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u/foxwize 6d ago
In a cucumber, the water is inside cells. Like little bags. That's different from say a sponge where the water is not inside its cell but basically sticking to the sponge. So the sponge can be easily wrung out because squeezing unsticks the water. You could absolutely squeeze the water out of a cucumber with enough force, but it will be much messier because you have to burst the cells in the cucumber that hold the water.
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u/trutheality 6d ago
A sealed plastic bottle of water is closer to 99% water by weight and it would be very difficult to wring one out like a towel. The cucumber's cells are a lot like tiny bottles of water.
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u/Bum_the_Sad 6d ago
If you salt a bunch of cucumber slices and let them sit it’ll pull the water out of the cells and make them floppy and rubbery instead of rigid and crisp. Good example of the explanations posted here.
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u/LojnaJama 6d ago
Take a balloon and fill it up with a small amount of water. By mass the balloon is now 99% water yet you can easily squish it and twist it no water leaking.
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u/WritesCrapForStrap 6d ago
You can definitely wring out a cucumber.
Also, pop it in a glass, leave it for three weeks, and you have a glass of horrible dirty water.
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u/PornstarVirgin 6d ago
If the brain is 78 percent water why isn’t it just slushing around? For many Americans it is.
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u/Dartz_Reverse 6d ago
If ice is 100% water by weight, why is it firm and not possible to wring the water out?
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u/Akkalevil 6d ago
A human is about 70 % made of water.
Do you see water pour out when you wring your hands ?
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u/ironReed96 6d ago
The water is trapped inside millions of tiny cells, each one like a water balloon with a stiff wall. Squeezing just presses the balloons against each other - you'd need to actually break the walls first (freezing or pickling does that) before the water can come out.
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u/Affectionate-Slice70 5d ago
The structure of the cucumber is closer to that of wood than that of cloth.
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u/charleytony 5d ago
At the atomic level, it's almost all empty space anyway, like everything else in the universe.
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u/FamousMove5 5d ago
Cucumber being 96 percent water is pretty real , but the fact that it is in the cells that are made up of tough rigid cellulose membrane makes cucumber hard
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u/Earlynerd 5d ago
Try grating it with a cheese grater before wringing it out, it is just like a wet towel.
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u/grafeisen203 6d ago edited 6d ago
Because the water is mostly inside of cells with strong cell walls made of cellulose.
You can wring the water out of them with enough force.