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Reply 6: Pansophic Polls
surface tension

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do you like water?
  if it has vitamins, yes
  strain the fish out of it first
  no but i like wacky experiments
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chessiejo

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:49 am
water at its surface has different properties than it does below the surface.

the surface acts almost like a "skin", with more adhesion, so that a glass can be filled above the top rim, with a bead showing.

i saw a 7th grade girl demonstrate the power of this effect on dave letterman this week.

she filled a glass carefully until the water stood up above the rim of the glass. then she gebtly covered the whole glass with a 3x5 index card...and inverted the glass!

nothing spilled; the surface tension held the card up onto the overfilled glass.

The cohesive forces between liquid molecules are responsible for the phenomenon known as surface tension. The molecules at the surface do not have other like molecules on all sides of them and consequently they cohere more strongly to those directly associated with them on the surface. This forms a surface "film" which makes it more difficult to move an object through the surface than to move it when it is completely submersed.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/surten.html  
PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:28 pm
Hooray for physics!  

Nechbet

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Eggy-Egg

PostPosted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:15 am
O_____O Zomg, I like physics like this, but I hate the forumlae that goes with it. -coughwheezehackgagchoke-  
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6: Pansophic Polls

 
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