Help with minerals please just a simple question?

Question

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/earthlab/support/mohs.gif

use that to help you

A mineral scratches a piece of fluorite but cannot be scratched by a piece of glass (hardness 5.5) what is this mineral's hardness?

yea im confused too because that nis he question my teacher wroe down on school loop word for word and i dont know what it is

yea im confused too because that nis he question my teacher wroe down on school loop word for word and i dont know what it is

yea im confused too because that nis he question my teacher wroe down on school loop word for word and i dont know what it is

yea im confused too because that nis he question my teacher wroe down on school loop word for word and i dont know what it is

yea im confused too because that nis he question my teacher wroe down on school loop word for word and i dont know what it is

Answer 1

So fluorite has the hardness of 3.5 and glass has the hardness of 5.5. That means that the mineral has to have hardness from 4 to 5. I think what your teacher meant is that it can't scratch the glass. I hope this helped.

Answer 2

Wha? Are you sure you wrote that question down correctly? Because if it scratches fluorite, then it's harder than fluorite. But if it CAN'T be scratched by glass, that means it's harder than glass. If a mineral is harder than another mineral, that means that the harder mineral can scratch the softer mineral, but not vice versa.

Like, say, you have a knife and a piece of chocolate. The knife is harder than the chocolate. So the knife can scratch the chocolate. But the chocolate can't scratch the knife.

Therefore, your question seems odd, because these questions usually have you to determine the hardness based on: the mineral scratches one mineral, but this other (harder) mineral scratches it. That way, the mineral is between two relative hardnesses, and you can figure it out.

But if it can't be scratched by a piece of glass, it could be any mineral harder than glass. Which leaves too many options, unless the answer is, "uh, harder than 6." Which might be the right answer, and would be right for the question you have here.

But take another look at your question...you may have replaced a "cannot" where you're supposed to have a "can".

Then, the answer would be between 3 and 5.5.

Answer 3

I'm a little confused by your question... Did you mean to say that "A mineral scratches a piece of fluorite but can't scratch a piece of glass (hardness 5.5) what is this mineral's hardness? Since glass is harder than Fluorite, anything that will scratch Glass will scratch Fluorite. Fluorite's hardness is about 4 if it scratches fluorite but not glass than it's hardness is between 4 and 5.5

Fluorite~4

Answer 4

Hardness Of Fluorite

Answer 5

Fluorite Hardness

Answer 6

Riddler...You diabolical