Is water wet? Can fire be burned?

Wetness is a perception, not an objective fact, and perceptual clues for wetness are actually not so straightforward, as you can see in this physiology article: bit.ly/wetness-perception. So, is water wet? Sorta maybe. Can fire *be* burned? Though as a wall built partly of flammable material I wish fire could be burned, it can’t. Fire is just the light and heat resulting from oxidation of fuel; there is nothing in fire to oxidize, because fire itself isn’t a substance it’s a process.

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.