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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
153/2006

The Floating Ball Paradox

Henry C. Wente

Abstract

In capillary theory there are two kinds of surface tension. There is the surface tension at the interface between two immiscible fluids. Thomas Young (T. Young, An essay on the cohesion of fluids, Phil. Transactions Royal Society, London, 95, (1805) 65-87) also allowed for there to be a surface tension associated with a liquid-solid interface. He proceeded to use a balance of forces argument to derive the well-known contact angle condition along a liquid-liquid-solid intersection. The validity of this argument has recently been called into question by R. Finn (R. Finn, The contact angle in capillarity, Physics of Fluids 18, 047102, (2006)). A floating ball experiment discussed in that paper leads to an apparent paradox. We address this issue.

Please see also the MPI MIS preprint 154/2006 by Robert Finn.

Received:
Dec 14, 2006
Published:
Dec 14, 2006
MSC Codes:
76B45, 76D45, 74G65
Keywords:
capillarity, surface tension

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