Why does lemon juice taste sour but soap feels slippery?
pH's Secret Seesaw
Why does lemon juice taste sour but soap feels slippery?
A wedge of lemon and a slippery bar of soap don't seem like they'd have anything in common. One makes your face scrunch into a knot. The other slides right out of your hand and across the bathtub. But here's the twist: they're actually two ends of the same hidden seesaw, and the name of that seesaw is pH.
Everything wet is secretly playing a tug-of-war over tiny particles called hydrogen ions — think of them as little hot potatoes that water passes around. Some liquids are eager to hand out extra hot potatoes. Others would rather snatch them away. That whole game has a scoreboard, and we call it the pH scale.
