You are given a hammer, a battery, a bulb, wires and. witch. (a) How could you use them to distinguish between samples of metals and non-metals. (b) Assess the usefulness of these tests in distinguishing between metals and non-metals.
(a) To distinguish between samples-of- metals and non-metals one can use hammer to beat the given material into sheets, if it breaks it is non-metal but if it is beaten into thin sheets it is a metal. One can also use battery, wires, bulb and switch to make a circuit and use the given material to complete the circuit one by one, if the electric current flows and the bulb glows then it is metal and if not then it is non-metal. (b) Though these tests gives us rough ideas in distinguishing between metals and non-metals but they are not reliable because both in metals & non-metals there are exceptions. For example Na metal is brittle and graphite can show conductivity
