EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Hardness (H) is the resistance of a mineral to scratching. It is a property by which minerals may be described relative to a standard scale of 10 minerals known as the Mohs scale of hardness.

Detailed explanation-2: -A mineral’s hardness is a measure of its relative resistance to scratching, measured by scratching the mineral against another substance of known hardness on the Mohs Hardness Scale.

Detailed explanation-3: -Scratch hardness is defined as the hardness of a material when it is scratched by a stylus dragged along its surface under a given load. Unlike pure indentation-based hardness tests, scratch hardness defines the resistance of material to plowing (i.e., a combination of indentation cum sliding) by a hard stylus.

Detailed explanation-4: -Diamond, for example, is a very hard material. It is extremely difficult to dent or scratch a diamond. In contrast, it is very easy to scratch or dent most plastics. As shown in the diagram below, hardness increases from the very soft plastics to the incredibly hard diamond with most other materials ranging between.