Surface Tension Essay

Background Research Paper

Surface tension is a unique quality that all liquids have. Many people know what surface tension is but there are a lot of things about surface tension that people do not know. For example, not many people know how to lower surface tension, why soap or temperature lowers surface tension, or even the history of surface tension.

A great explanation for surface tension is “The property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force, due to the cohesive nature of its molecules.” (https://water.usgs.gov/edu/surface-tension.html) Which means, that since the water molecules are bonded together at the surface, they are strong enough to keep an item with much higher density from sinking below

Basically, “cohesive forces decrease with an increase of molecular thermal activity.” (fsz.ifas.ufl.edu/surfacetensionandcapillarity) Which just means that the cohesive forces do not work well when the water has a warm temperature. An example is how you put your water an ice tray and put it in the freezer it freezes into ice cubes, this is because the temperature is so low that the cohesive forces bind together all the molecules in the water. The reason that dish soap and detergent lower the surface tension is because the soap molecule has a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic end, so the hydrophilic end stays attached to the water molecule and to the other hydrophilic ends of other molecules but the hydrophobic end stays away from the water. Since the soap has an end away from the water and new, weaker film forms. So, since the new film made from the soap is weaker than the original surface tension film the water’s surface tension is lowered. As a result, having the water for dishes or clothes hot and have a soap or detergent makes the cleaning more effective and

Agnes Pockels was the first person to document her experiments with surface tension. Pockels experimented with soaps and oils to see the impact they have on water since she was born in a time when women were not allowed to go to universities she did not have the proper equipment but, she still worked with what she had. Her brother, Friedrich Pockels, would send her letters, allowing her to have access to the textbooks. Agnes Pockels sent a letter to Lord Rayleigh after her brother told her about a paper that Rayleigh published with results from a similar experiment to the one she did and so the letter sent sent Rayleigh discussed her project as well as the results. Lord Rayleigh encouraged Agnes to continue her experimenting and he was so impressed that he sent the results of the project to a journal named Nature under Agnes Pockels name next to his own article and her work became famous.Agnes Pockels is now recognized as the pioneer of surface tension. Her work became so famous that, “ In 1931, she was awarded the Laura R. Leonard Prize of the German Colloid Society, the first woman to win the award. The following year, she received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Braunschweig, in honour of her 70th birthday.” (http://www.rsc.org/diversity/175-faces/all-faces/agnes-pockels) But another major