Today we had a very cool exercise with water in Dr. Boyd’s class. We all tried to make a needle to float on the water. That didn’t work out so well considering that the needles weren’t exactly straight. This is called surface tension.
Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_tension). In other words, it allows something to rest on top of the liquid. This is all possible because of the teamwork of other molecules. Many bugs are able to sit and run on top of the water, such as water striders. Another example of surface tension is competition diving. In the video I'm going to show you, notice the water spraying into the pool. The purpose of this spraying water is to reduce surface tension, that way there is a less impact on the diver.