Monday, 17 February 2014

Surface tension


I thought I might start us off with a quick little experiment you can do at home about surface tension.

1.     Half fill a small bowl with water.  Then sprinkle a thin layer of ground pepper on the surface.
2.     Dip a tooth pick in the washing up liquid.  Then touch the middle of the water with the stick’s tip.
3.     As the washing up liquid touches the water, watch what happers to the grains of pepper.  What happens to them?
4.     Half fill another small bowl with milk.  Then add two or three drops of food dye in different places.  Use lots of different colours if you have them.
5.     Dip a cocktail stick in the washing up liquid and touch the milk with it.  What happens to the dyes as you do this?

Washing up liquid reduces surface tension.  This allows the particles of the water to spread out more.  As they spread out, the push the pepper specks or the food dyes so that they spread out and merge together, creating patterns.

No comments:

Post a Comment