Have you ever noticed a truck salting roads during the winter? Have you ever added salt to water when cooking pasta? If so, you have already been exposed to a group of four physical phenomena called colligative properties. These characteristics are fully dependent on the number of particles dissolved in the solution -- it does not matter what those particles are. If the number of particles is significant, colligative properties can be substantial. Dissolving particles in a solution has four different colligative effects.