17 Facts About Surface tension

Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible.

Surface tension is an important factor in the phenomenon of capillarity.

Surface tension has the dimension of force per unit length, or of energy per unit area.

In materials science, surface tension is used for either surface stress or surface energy.

Surface tension is visible in other common phenomena, especially when surfactants are used to decrease it:.

Surface tension, represented by the symbol ?, is measured in force per unit length.

Surface tension will pull the blue bar to the left; the force required to hold the movable side is proportional to the length of the immobile side.

Consequently, surface tension can be measured in SI system as joules per square meter and in the cgs system as ergs per cm.

Surface tension of any liquid is an interface between that liquid and some other medium.

Surface tension, then, is not a property of the liquid alone, but a property of the liquid's interface with another medium.

Contact angle of 180° occurs when the liquid–solid surface tension is exactly equal to the liquid–air surface tension.

Which method is optimal depends upon the nature of the liquid being measured, the conditions under which its tension is to be measured, and the stability of its surface when it is deformed.

For microscopic surfaces with very tight curvatures, it is not correct to assume the surface tension is independent of size, and topics like the Tolman length come into play.

Solutes can have different effects on surface tension depending on the nature of the surface and the solute:.

Surface tension creates the sheet of water between the flow and the hand.

Surface tension prevents a coin from sinking: the coin is indisputably denser than water, so it must be displacing a volume greater than its own for buoyancy to balance mass.

Surface tension prevents water from displacing the air between the petals and possibly submerging the flower.