Jason Bradwell's 365/366 Photo a Day Blog

Ooooooh! Magic! Vooooodoooooooo.... Walking on water!

Surface tension causes many liquids to behave as an elastic sheet and allows insects, such as the water strider, to walk on water. It allows small objects, even metal, to float on the surface of water, and it is the cause of capillary action. Everyday observations of surface tension include the formation of water droplets on various surfaces and the concavity of the surface of water in a glass. In the former example, water sticks better to itself than to a particular surface, thus allowing it to form droplets. And, in the later example, water sticks strongly to the side of a glass, overcoming the downward force of gravity that causes the center of the surface to curve downward.