What happens when the high surface tension of water?

Answer 1

Surface tension is the amount of attraction the surface of an object has.

Surface tension is easily demonstrated by observing a pool of water. Put your finger in the water and slowly... i mean "slowly"... pull your finger away and you will see the water is actually attracted to your finger and the water will stay on your finger as you pull your finger off the pool of water. This is because of surface tension.

Viscosity is the resistance of a liquid flow. A high viscosity means the liquid is thicker and does not move as readily. (And technically solids have an infinite viscosity because they do not "flow").

A high viscous liquid would be like syrup.

A low viscous liquid would be like water.

Now... a high viscous liquid (like syrup) has a higher surface tension than a low viscous liquid. Do the "finger" demonstration with syrup. You will notice that syrup (being more viscous) will actually be attracted to your finger more than water is. Once you put your finger in a pool of syrup and bring it out... more syrup will be still on your finger.

If you relate the water and syrup demonstration you will see that a higher viscosity means a greater surface tension and a lower viscosity means a lower surface tension.

Answer 2

The same attractive forces that cause surface molecules to be difficult to separate (high surface tension) cause molecules elsewhere in the sample to resist movement relative to each other (high viscosity).

Answer 3

Surface tension is the tendency of a liquid to be attracted to itself. The result is that liquids tend to clump into droplets because a sphere/ball is the configuration where all the molecules are closest together. Liquids have varying surface tension, some have a stronger tendency to clump together than others. For example water has more surface tension than ethanol.

Mercury has about five times as much surface tension as water does so it can form droplets that are five times as large. And water is already high ranking as surface tension goes so mercury is definitely the most surface-tensile substance I know about.

In fact you can roll a single droplet of mercury around in your palm. But I advise against this as mercury is extremely toxic. It makes you go bonkers. Forever.

So to answer your question to have high surface tension is for a liquid substance to be strongly attracted to itself.

Answer 4

The high surface tension of water allows it to form droplets and beads on surfaces. This property also enables water striders and other small insects to walk on the surface of water without sinking. Additionally, surface tension causes capillary action, allowing water to move against gravity in narrow tubes or plant roots.