“A drop can bounce”

November 11, 2009 @ 6:53 am | Filed under: ,

The everyday magic of surface tension: “the quality of a liquid that causes the surface layer of that liquid to behave like an elastic sheet.”

HT to my hubby, as usual. He always finds the best stuff.


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Comments

7 Reponses | Comments Feed
  1. Rebecca says:

    Wow. Very cool!

  2. Anna says:

    I’m not super-sciency, but it seems this could change a lot in the physics world.

    What’s most amazing to me is that the last little drop (at the end of the clip) didn’t even cause a ripple as it bounced. Wow.

  3. a reader says:

    . . .this begs the question: what is the surface tension of a cupcake? Why does the cupcake behave like an elastic sheet calling forth repeat bounce-backs? And more importantly can that ingredient be removed without diminishing the taste?

  4. Esther says:

    Amazing! Thank you for sharing!

  5. Elizabeth Varadan says:

    Wow, who knew?

  6. Sarah N. says:

    Really cool. I’ll definitely have to show my 6yo. It reminds me of an experiment we did this week about antibubbles (water surrounded by a thin film of air rather than air surrounded by a thin film of water). There’s a cool video at the site: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/bubbles-that-sink-antibubbles/

  7. Sally Thomas says:

    Very nifty. Know what we’ll be doing for science next time . . .