Module 2: "Capliarity"
  Lecture 6: ""
 

 

The contact angle is a measure of the wettability of the surface by that particular liquid. Higher the contact angle lesser is the wettability. The extreme situations correspond to when it is perfectly wettable and when it is non-wettable. A mercury drop is an example of a non-wettable liquid. Therefore, a mercury drop tries to form a perfect sphere but the sphere gets slightly flattened due to gravity.

The Young-Laplace and Young’s equation considered together give us the shape of a surface. However, these equations are extremely difficult to solve analytically.  Fortunately, various simplifications are possible in most cases which makes it much easier to solve the equations.

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