General Science-Inquiry and Problem Solving

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What could we do? We could start by temperature the melting and boiling temperatures. This is a basic piece of information which is always used to categorize chemical substances. Does it melt easily and quickly or does it take forever and require lots and lots of heat before it melts. Likewise, are we even able to get it to boil? Perhaps it's melting and boiling temperatures are so high that we can't even determine it in an ordinary lab. These will all be useful pieces of information.

What else can we do? We can determine the hardness of the substance. There has been an entire scale of hardness developed. You determine this by comparing the substance to different types of rocks that have been standardized for this type of test. Whether the rock or the unknown substance scratches determines the hardness level ...