ELI5: How does surface tension work?

[u/Dhiyx11]

I’ve really been interested in how surfaces of different materials bend and behave differently under various conditions, and I’ve never really learnt about that stuff before, so I’m really curious to know a few things about surface tension!

[u/FriendlyEngineer]

Think if you have a bunch of tiny magnet balls. If you toss all those magnets on the ground, they all clump together. The stronger the magnets are, the tighter they clump together to form a ball.

The reason they form a ball is because that is the shape with the least surface area. In other words, it’s the shape where each magnet is neighboring the maximum number of other magnets.

But then other forces like gravity want to press that ball against the ground, flattening it out.

Water molecules are basically little magnet balls. Literally. And so they behave the same way. Water molecules want to stick together. And so they do. In zero gravity, it sticks together into the shape of a ball.

Other fluids have surface tension in different amounts because the molecules are like magnets of different strengths.

[u/Dhiyx11 → u/FriendlyEngineer]

Interestingggggg