Abstract
II. NOW in this second way we have, in performing the folding motion, allowed the water surface to become less by 60 square centimetres. It is easily seen that, provided the radius of curvature in every part of the surface exceeds one or two hundred times the extent of distance to which the molecular attraction is sensible, or, as we may say practically, provided the radius of curvature is everwhere greater than 5000 micro-millimetres (that is, the two-hundredth of a millimetre), we should have obtained this amount of work with the same diminution of water-surface, however performed. Hence our result is that we have found 4.5/60 (or 3/40) of a centimetre-gramme of work per square centimetre of diminution of surface. This is precisely the result we should have had if the water had been absolutely deprived of the attractive force between water and water, and its whole surface had been coated over with an infinitely thin contractile film possessing a uniform contractile force of 3/40 of a gramme weight, or 75 milligrammes, per lineal centimetre.
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THOMSON, W. Capillary Attraction 1 . Nature 34, 290–294 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034290c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034290c0
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