Material property

In science, a property is anything that describes a material or substance. It is a characteristic of that material. For example, how hard the material is, its colour, or its shape. Elasticity is a property of rubber; in other words: rubber is elastic. A property may be a constant (always the same) or it may only appear when something changes, such as temperature.

Chemical properties include things like surface tension, pH, reactivity, allotropy. Conductivity is how able a material is to transport electric charge or heat.

Other examples
 Ductility, how easy it is to stretch a material
 Flammability, how easily a material will catch fire
 Luminosity, how bright an object is
 Malleability, how easy it is to re-shape a material without damaging it
 Permeability, how dense a magnetic field would be if current passes through it
 Tensile strength, how much force must be applied to a material to break it
 Viscosity, how thick a fluid is

Related pages
 Physical property
 Chemical property

Category:Materials science