Impregnation laws
Wetting and impregnation laws

If a small tube (radius r ) is brought into contact with a wetting liquid, liquid rises in the tube. This spectacular demonstration of the existence of capillary forces (which become greater than the forces of gravity, if the tube has a radius smaller than the capillary length defined by the equation (7) ) played a considerable historical role, since it was at the origin of the science of capillarity. Laplace, in particular, was the first to understand the law of ascent (known in France as Jurin's law, after the English physiologist who studied it in the...