{"id":374,"date":"2020-11-10T18:47:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T01:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/?p=374"},"modified":"2021-01-07T07:25:38","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T14:25:38","slug":"upward-liquids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/upward-liquids\/","title":{"rendered":"upward liquids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A lot of people don&#8217;t believe me when I tell them this, but I truly don&#8217;t understand how water crawls up a paper towel or string or piece of cloth. How does it get the energy to do this when it&#8217;s just sitting there; and the towel is also seemingly passive in the whole affair?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m a physicist and I work with many like-minded scientists. When I ask them about this phenomenon, they realize that it&#8217;s not all that simple, but probably it has something to do with electric forces in the towel and interactions with the water. I&#8217;m sure that this is part of the answer. But even so, I&#8217;m happy to admit that I don&#8217;t really understand it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I assign the problem to my students and ask them to start to investigate different features of liquid absorption. They think of much better investigations than I would, and when we share these we start to come up with more ideas. To get them started, I&#8217;ve created this timelapse video of water moving up a cloth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SsaYEuJPiN8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought my idea to speed up the video and include a clock in the frame was clever. I&#8217;m proud of that old-school technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do you notice? What wonders strike you? What investigations could this spur? This is just the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s what the scene looked like the following morning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"381\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/upward-liquids\/fluidabsorb\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fluidabsorb.jpg?fit=%2C&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"[]\" data-image-title=\"fluidabsorb\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fluidabsorb.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fluidabsorb.jpg?resize=756%2C1008&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"dyed water is absorbed in a vertical hanging strip of cloth\" class=\"wp-image-381\" width=\"756\" height=\"1008\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, later that morning, I detached the cloth and set the loose end on the table. It was originally dry, but then this puddle started to form:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"383\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/upward-liquids\/spilledwater\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/spilledwater.jpg?fit=%2C&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"[]\" data-image-title=\"spilledwater\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/spilledwater.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/spilledwater.jpg?resize=1512%2C2016&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"a band of cloth in the dyed water has started to move the water from the glass onto the table\" class=\"wp-image-383\" width=\"1512\" height=\"2016\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Epilogue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In my classes, I see lots of really great examples of how this phenomenon can be turned into a research project with lots of different variables. Researchers create all sorts of different investigation designs with interesting variables and creative methods. This time-lapse video that Micah created gives a good impression of one of the hundreds of ways the climbing fluids can be studied, and it&#8217;s fun to see the process overviewed in just a couple minutes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aEqBJMz1Jm8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people don&#8217;t believe me when I tell them this, but I truly don&#8217;t understand how water crawls up a paper towel or string or piece of cloth. How does it get the energy to do this when it&#8217;s just sitting there; and the towel is also seemingly passive in the whole affair? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stc_notifier_status":"","_stc_notifier_sent_time":"","_stc_notifier_request":false,"_stc_notifier_prevent":false,"_stc_subscriber_keywords":"","_stc_subscriber_search_areas":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,9],"tags":[10,60,58,61,57,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-notes","7":"category-investigations","8":"category-phenomena","9":"tag-randomactofscience","10":"tag-absorb","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-investigation","13":"tag-liquid","14":"tag-matter"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DkEt-62","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstdrafts.net\/physicalscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}