Explain why limp celery becomes crisp and the skin of your fingertips wrinkle when placed in tap water?

Answer 1

Cells, which compose both you and celery, are capable of taking up water by osmosis.

So the celery fills up with water, so to speak, and the skin cells in your fingers do too.

Answer 2

A little thing called osmosis! In a limp plant (the celery) the osmotic pressure is less than the pressure of ...well the water itself. So water molecules from the water goes ito the plant cells making it turgid (or crispy!). In other words, its like this: A bunch of people in a very crowded room would quicker go to the next room than stay in that room. As for the wrinkly skin in tap water, it is relatively the same thing. The slight difference is that instead of out of your skin, the water goes to other places or other cells. (PS since our cells do not have cell walls, some of the cells would burst!)

Answer 3

like was said before, water enters cells by osmosis. it moves in a gradient of high water to low water. because there is less water in the cells than in pure water, the water will move into the cells.

http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/genobc/animations/osmosis.mov

celery will become crisp because plant cells have an additional cell wall which animal cells don't have, so they become turgid and "hard" when ther eis a lot of water in them, therefore vegetables become more crisp when placed in tap water (that's why supermarkets spray veggies with water).

animal cells don't have a cell wall, just a cell membrane, so they are more stretchy than plant cells, and when water enters animal cells they just become bigger. as the cells on your fingertips stretch and get bigger, it looks like your entire skin has grown too big for your finger and there is "too much skin", therefore the wrinkly look.

water will usually stop entering the cell at some point, but they may also burst in some circumstances.

Answer 4

Plants, while they are still green are still alive, and continuously trying to survive, they absorb water through small pores as a means of in-taking needed water, to maintain life. This refills the cells, whose cell walls have bowed inward due to the absence of the needed water, when re-hydrated the cells resume their desired size, pushing the cells walls out, thus restoring the structure of the plant cells and thus firms the plants rigidy. This is why you see mist'ers in the grocery store, they are watering the plants to keep them fresher, or alive longer.

Your skin absorbs water through osmosis, in attempt to reach equilibrium with the solutes in your skin cells. basically your skin is being over saturated with water, thus increasing the size of the cells which wrinkles the skin as the surface area increases.

Answer 5

Already asked and answered right here!! Check the site below:

Answer 6

It's called osmosis. I hope this helps.