What is the difference between white sand and sugar?

I know that sugar has noncubic crystals, but what about sand? Doesn't sand have noncubic crystals too? And then what is the difference between white sand and sugar?

1 Answer
Dec 31, 2016

Are you serious?

Explanation:

Try sweetening your tea with sand. Sand is a non-molecular substance, which would have next to no solubility in any solvent. On the other hand, sugar is a molecular substance, that has substantial water solubility.

And of course, sand and sugar differ (markedly) with respect to composition. Sand is #SiO_2#, whereas sugar has a formula of #C_6H_12O_6#. These are thus different substances, the which we would expect to have different physical and chemical properties. And indeed they do.