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We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server as of 1 March 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.

MiS Preprint
93/2004

The contact angle in capillarity

Robert Finn

Abstract

In 1805, Thomas Young gave a reasoning to support the view that the contact angle at a solid/liquid/gas interface is a physical constant depending only on the materials, and in no other way on the particular configuration considered. That conclusion has become one of the underpinnings of both classical and modern capillarity theory. The present paper raises some questions about the reasoning, and offers partial answers.

Received:
Dec 15, 2004
Published:
Dec 15, 2004
MSC Codes:
76B45, 53A10, 49Q10

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2006 Repository Open Access
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The contact angle in capillarity

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