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In hydrology, capillary action describes the attraction of water molecules to soil particles. Capillary action is responsible for moving groundwater from wet areas of the soil to dry areas. Differences in soil potential ( ) drive capillary action in soil. A practical application of capillary action is the capillary action siphon.
Water potential is the potential energy of water per unit volume relative to pure water in reference conditions. Water potential quantifies the tendency of water to move from one area to another due to osmosis, gravity, mechanical pressure and matrix effects such as capillary action (which is caused by surface tension).
Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. water striders) to float on a water surface without becoming even partly submerged. At liquid–air interfaces, surface ...
Prince Rupert's drops. Prince Rupert's drops (also known as Dutch tears or Batavian tears) [1][2] are toughened glass beads created by dripping molten glass into cold water, which causes it to solidify into a tadpole -shaped droplet with a long, thin tail. These droplets are characterized internally by very high residual stresses, which give ...
Tension might also be described as the action-reaction pair of forces acting at each end of an object. At the atomic level, when atoms or molecules are pulled apart from each other and gain potential energy with a restoring force still existing, the restoring force might create what is also called tension.
Stokes' law. In fluid dynamics, Stokes' law is an empirical law for the frictional force – also called drag force – exerted on spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers in a viscous fluid. [1] It was derived by George Gabriel Stokes in 1851 by solving the Stokes flow limit for small Reynolds numbers of the Navier–Stokes equations.
As an action potential (nerve impulse) travels down an axon there is a change in electric polarity across the membrane of the axon. In response to a signal from another neuron, sodium- (Na +) and potassium- (K +)–gated ion channels open and close as the membrane reaches its threshold potential. Na + channels open at the beginning of the ...
Repolarization is a stage of an action potential in which the cell experiences a decrease of voltage due to the efflux of potassium (K +) ions along its electrochemical gradient. This phase occurs after the cell reaches its highest voltage from depolarization. After repolarization, the cell hyperpolarizes as it reaches resting membrane ...