Why does surface tension minimize surface area

Viewed 18k times. Improve this question. Ishita Gupta Ishita Gupta 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 10 10 bronze badges. Is this a good physical answer? I mean, is there a principle of efficiency in physics, as with the alleged "simplicity" and "beauty" of certain explanations.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. In fact this can be shown for any shape : As you can see the shape of a sphere has the lowest possible surface area to volume ratio and therefor requires the least energy to maintain its shape. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. However, you can in fact write down a hamiltonian for the surface energy and solve that under the constraint of constant volume technically mass , this will return a sphere. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What happens to surface tension upon increasing surface area Ask Question. Asked 4 years, 9 months ago. Active 1 year, 2 months ago. Viewed 4k times. Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Does temperature affect the number of drop needed for surface tension on a penny?

What might affect the size of a drop? Why does a drop fall in a round shape? Why does water form spherical droplets on some surfaces? Why the shape of liquid drop is spherical? How many microliters are in one drop? Why are small drops of mercury spherical but large ones are not?

Why the drop of water is always circular in shape? How does soap affects the surface tension of water? Do liquids that have higher tension produce drops that are flatter or more nearly sperical ttan liquids with lowersurface tension? Which physical phenomenon is attributed to tendency of a liquid drop to assume spherical shape?

Why are water drops are spherical in shape? Why do water droplets always form one huge drop on a penny? What makes a water drop round instead of flat? Why the drops of liquid are spherical? What liquid does gold float on? Why are falling drops of water spherical? How many drops equal 0. What is a good title for a science project about surface tension? Why the raindrop is spherical? What property of water is being demonstrated when you place a drop of water on wax paper?

What are two factors that determine how spherical a drop of a liquid will be? The general formula for measuring surface tension is: gamma equals force divided by length. Gamma represents surface tension, F represents force, and d represents the length along which the force is felt.

What is the concept of surface tension? Definition of surface tension. What is the SI unit of surface tension? What is the origin of surface tension? Because of this, the surface molecules acts as a stretched membrane and is attracted inward finally resulting surface tension.

This is how surface tension is originated. In short, surface tension is originated due to unequal existence of cohesive force felt by surface molecules of liquid as in above figure. What is surface energy material? Surface energy is a term used to describe the surface of a given substrate; surface energies range from high to low. The molecular force of attraction between unlike materials determines their adhesion.

High surface energy means a strong molecular attraction, while low surface energy means weaker attractive forces. What is the effect of temperature on surface tension? In general, surface tension decreases when temperature increases because cohesive forces decrease with an increase of molecular thermal activity.