• Signtist@bookwyr.me
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, I’ll often spread spilled water across the table just so that it evaporates within a couple minutes.

    • Derpenheim@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Unless its a hydrocarbon product, which can (and does) spread over surfaces it can’t mix with/soak into in single molecules thick sheets.

    • theUwUhugger@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Aha! But languical constructs allow and do allow hyperboles! So it could be argued that the colleague asked for the minimum allowed by our bindings law!

      I request a motion to dismiss your dismissal :>

    • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It relies on differences in surface tension. If a liquid has a lower surface tension (energy) towards one surface than another, you get the typical capillary effect. In the case of water, the water-air energy is lower than the water-<whatever your capillary is made of> energy, so you get a capillary effect.

      If water had exactly zero surface tension against every interface,

      • it would not exhibit any capillary action
      • life on earth would cease to exist quite quickly
      • your socks would remain dry
  • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’d evaporate much quicker TBF. Although that also means that the BP would be much lower and tea and coffee wouldn’t be a thing and boiling wouldn’t be a reliable method of cooking. although on the flip side, you could increase the strength of alcoholic beverages by boiling the water off instead of distilling the alcohol.

    • kamen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yep. Generally if one property of it was so different, I’d expect many others to be different as a result of that too. So physics and chemistry as we know them (with so many things relying on water) wouldn’t exist. And thinking further how life on Earth started off in the water…

  • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I think that’s part of our anthropic bias, not sure we’d be alive without water’s surface tension in order to observe this.

    • theUwUhugger@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Well cells wouldn’t be circle shaped, but would it actually be to the detriment of life in that or other ways?

      Maybe cells could take a more pragmatic shape, like tactical dicks

          • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Capillary action doesn’t happen without surface tension, so long stemmed woody plants are out. Iirc, mushrooms were not super common before trees and spread by decomposing them, so those are gone too

      • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think that could make some life-supporting chemical reactions difficult to happen, but I’m not qualified to judge that.

        • theUwUhugger@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I don’t, not that I am qualified to say so either! The larger surface area might be beneficial for osmosis!

        • smoker@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          Surface tension and reactions are manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon. I’m certain that causing a change in one would also affect the other.

  • yucandu@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    That’s how gasoline spills (on water) work. They cover the water about one molecule thick.

  • JaymesRS@piefed.world
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    2 months ago

    This reminds me of the person that suggested in a response to a request for ADHD “life-hacks” where they would wet one of their socks before starting a specific high-importance task and could not take it off until the specified task was completed.

  • don@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    At 2 micrometers, it’s going to evaporate too fast for there to be a puddle thin film of water.

  • BedInspector@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Well if water didn’t have its unique properties of cohesion and adhesion we likely wouldn’t be here anyways.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    We would not have life! Water is a polar molecule that is very different from most other liquids. Its the specific surface tension properties that help to create life. The reason why we search for planets with water. We’ve never worked out a way for any life to exists without the amazing H2O.

    • icelimit@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Now imagine what wonders we could have if there were a few other quicky molecules.

      • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        As an odd thought experiment or are we hoping that the laws of physics might be different there? All water, except brand new in reaction space is almost certainly going to contain dissolved ions

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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          2 months ago

          Well I think the idea is more that for some reason water needs to be treated with something that removes surface tension if you want to safely pipe it to people’s houses. At least that shouldn’t destroy all life.

  • betahack@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    look…I’m just glad roaches don’t have sharp teeth and spiders can’t fly.

    let’s stop while we’re ahead

    • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      When some spiders are born, sometimes hundreds at a time, they cast little parachute webs and ride the wind to wherever they might go.

      Palmetto bugs are like mean flying roaches that bite.

      You’ll never escape the horrors of the beauty in nature.

      • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        “Palmetto bugs” are just roaches, period. That name refers to either the Florida woods cockroach or the American cockroach.

    • ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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      2 months ago

      Yes and no. No surface tension implies vanishing intermolecular forces, so the liquid would not be cohesive and would expand in all directions to the volume of the room… which is pretty much the definition of a gas. Not quite though: supercritical fluids also do this as long as temperature and pressure remain high enough, and are indeed useful in niche applications industrially.

    • SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Liquid with low to none surface tension? Relatively possivle, tensioactives and additives within soaps and washing up liquids can do that.

      And lakes affected by this are biologically damaged or dead, as surface tension is essntial to life.

      Edit: that line is something they would absolutely add to an ATHF episode, but the consequences would be absurd as usual.