Why do water drops form spheres in space? [duplicate]
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This question already has an answer here:
Why do floating water drops form spheres?
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When water is poured out in space, why does it always take a spherical ball-like shape?
water geometry surface-tension
marked as duplicate by John Rennie, knzhou, Chair, Qmechanic♦ Nov 25 at 13:37
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
add a comment |
up vote
17
down vote
favorite
This question already has an answer here:
Why do floating water drops form spheres?
5 answers
When water is poured out in space, why does it always take a spherical ball-like shape?
water geometry surface-tension
marked as duplicate by John Rennie, knzhou, Chair, Qmechanic♦ Nov 25 at 13:37
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
add a comment |
up vote
17
down vote
favorite
up vote
17
down vote
favorite
This question already has an answer here:
Why do floating water drops form spheres?
5 answers
When water is poured out in space, why does it always take a spherical ball-like shape?
water geometry surface-tension
This question already has an answer here:
Why do floating water drops form spheres?
5 answers
When water is poured out in space, why does it always take a spherical ball-like shape?
This question already has an answer here:
Why do floating water drops form spheres?
5 answers
water geometry surface-tension
water geometry surface-tension
edited Nov 25 at 12:10
knzhou
38.6k9106188
38.6k9106188
asked Nov 23 at 15:28
Shivansh J
11517
11517
marked as duplicate by John Rennie, knzhou, Chair, Qmechanic♦ Nov 25 at 13:37
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
marked as duplicate by John Rennie, knzhou, Chair, Qmechanic♦ Nov 25 at 13:37
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
add a comment |
add a comment |
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
up vote
22
down vote
accepted
Minimizing energy. If there is a small amount of water, then surface tension wants to try and minimize the surface area of it, and the minimum surface area for a given volume material is a sphere. For really large volumes of water (if you, for instance, sucked all the water out of the oceans and placed it somewhere far away in space in the standard mad-scientist way), then you also get a sphere, but for a different reason: the mass of water wants to minimize its (self-)gravitational potential energy and this is also done when it is spherical. If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical: this is one of the reasons the Moon has a slightly odd shape, for instance.
In between these two regimes -- if you had a few thousand gallons of water for instance, then although it would eventually end up spherical in the absence of other influences, this would take a very long time.
Quantifying the effects
It is interesting to try to quantify the differences between the effects. One way to do this is to consider a spherical ball of water (or anything else, but I'll stick to water because numbers are easy to come by) and consider what force you would need to bisect the sphere and move the two halves apart. Then we can compute the force that would be needed to break the surface tension, and that needed to overcome the gravitational attraction of the two halves.
Surface tension
Let the radius of the ball be $R$, and surface tension be $T$: $T$ has units of force per length. So the total force we need to exert when splitting the sphere is simply the total force exerted by surface tension around a circumference of the sphere, and we can see immediately that this goes like $R$.
$$F_T = 2pi R Ttag{T}$$
For water, $T = 7.3times 10^{-2},mathrm{N/m}$ approximately.
Gravity
This is more complicated. First of all we can say something about the behaviour of the force: the masses of the two hemispheres go like $R^3$, and the separation like $R$, so it's immediately obvious that the force is going to go like $R^3times R^3 / R^2$: like $R^4$ in other words. Gravity is going to win as $R$ gets big!
But we can actually get a number, even though the hemispheres are not, well, spheres, and thus hard to treat gravitationally: if you think about the surface which cuts the the ball into two hemispheres, then what is preventing the ball collapsing inwards across this surface is pressure. So the gravitational force between the two halves of the ball, when they are touching, must be equal to the integral of the pressure over that surface (it took me ages to realise this trick!).
Let's assume the density is uniform, which it won't be for really large objects but it will be for reasonably small ones. Call the density $rho$. Then we can work out the gravitational acceleration at radius $r$ from the centre, relying on the shell theorem and knowing the mass inside $r$ is $m(r) = 4/3 pi r^3$.
$$g(r) = frac{4pi}{3}Grho r$$
And this gives us the pressure at $r$, just by integrating $g$ from $r$ to $R$:
$$
begin{align}
p(r_0) &= intlimits_{r_0}^R rho g(r),dr\
&= frac{4pi}{3} G rho^2 int_{r_0}^R r,dr\
&= frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r_0^2right]
end{align}
$$
or
$$p(r) = frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r^2right]$$
And finally we can integrate this over the surface to get the total force:
$$
begin{align}
F_G &= intlimits_0^R 2pi r p(r) ,dr\
&= frac{4pi^2}{3}Grho^2 intlimits_0^R R^2r - r^3 ,dr\
F_G &= frac{pi^2}{3} G rho^2 R^4tag{G}
end{align}
$$
(I hope this is right: it is dimensionally OK but I might have missed factors somewhere.)
Compared
So, then, given $rho = 10^3,mathrm{kg/m^3}$, $G = 6.7times 10^{-11},mathrm{m^3/(kg s^2)}$, we can solve for the radius $R$ where $F_T$ = $F_G$, and the answer is about $12.8,mathrm{m}$. I was surprised how small this is (and I am worried I have made a mistake therefore).
So if this is right, it means that gravity starts beating surface tension for a ball of water which is about $13,mathrm{m}$ in radius, and beyond that it wins rather rapidly due to the dependence on $R^4$. What this does not tell you is anything about how long it takes something to become spherical: I think that would be a bunch harder to work out.
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
|
show 1 more comment
up vote
37
down vote
No, it's not because of gravity. You need to take quite a lot of water in order for gravitational effects to become significant.
It's because of surface tension. Sphere is a shape which minimizes the surface for a given volume. The surface-tension-related potential energy of the water is proportional to the surface, so spherical shape minimizes the potential energy.
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
add a comment |
up vote
4
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I’m sure that a chemist could give a deeper answer. Or from Wikipedia we get, the surface tension occurs because water has hydrogen bonding.
Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces.
The key are the 4 possible hydrogen bonds to other water molecules of liquid water. The water molecules are bonded to each other like a free dimensional mesh.
Heating water, the water could be sprayed out in space to small pieces of course. The hydrogen bonds are weak (compared to metallic bonds) and under the influence of heat transfer the kinetic energy of the water molecules increases and the hydrogen bonds get broken.
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
add a comment |
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
22
down vote
accepted
Minimizing energy. If there is a small amount of water, then surface tension wants to try and minimize the surface area of it, and the minimum surface area for a given volume material is a sphere. For really large volumes of water (if you, for instance, sucked all the water out of the oceans and placed it somewhere far away in space in the standard mad-scientist way), then you also get a sphere, but for a different reason: the mass of water wants to minimize its (self-)gravitational potential energy and this is also done when it is spherical. If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical: this is one of the reasons the Moon has a slightly odd shape, for instance.
In between these two regimes -- if you had a few thousand gallons of water for instance, then although it would eventually end up spherical in the absence of other influences, this would take a very long time.
Quantifying the effects
It is interesting to try to quantify the differences between the effects. One way to do this is to consider a spherical ball of water (or anything else, but I'll stick to water because numbers are easy to come by) and consider what force you would need to bisect the sphere and move the two halves apart. Then we can compute the force that would be needed to break the surface tension, and that needed to overcome the gravitational attraction of the two halves.
Surface tension
Let the radius of the ball be $R$, and surface tension be $T$: $T$ has units of force per length. So the total force we need to exert when splitting the sphere is simply the total force exerted by surface tension around a circumference of the sphere, and we can see immediately that this goes like $R$.
$$F_T = 2pi R Ttag{T}$$
For water, $T = 7.3times 10^{-2},mathrm{N/m}$ approximately.
Gravity
This is more complicated. First of all we can say something about the behaviour of the force: the masses of the two hemispheres go like $R^3$, and the separation like $R$, so it's immediately obvious that the force is going to go like $R^3times R^3 / R^2$: like $R^4$ in other words. Gravity is going to win as $R$ gets big!
But we can actually get a number, even though the hemispheres are not, well, spheres, and thus hard to treat gravitationally: if you think about the surface which cuts the the ball into two hemispheres, then what is preventing the ball collapsing inwards across this surface is pressure. So the gravitational force between the two halves of the ball, when they are touching, must be equal to the integral of the pressure over that surface (it took me ages to realise this trick!).
Let's assume the density is uniform, which it won't be for really large objects but it will be for reasonably small ones. Call the density $rho$. Then we can work out the gravitational acceleration at radius $r$ from the centre, relying on the shell theorem and knowing the mass inside $r$ is $m(r) = 4/3 pi r^3$.
$$g(r) = frac{4pi}{3}Grho r$$
And this gives us the pressure at $r$, just by integrating $g$ from $r$ to $R$:
$$
begin{align}
p(r_0) &= intlimits_{r_0}^R rho g(r),dr\
&= frac{4pi}{3} G rho^2 int_{r_0}^R r,dr\
&= frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r_0^2right]
end{align}
$$
or
$$p(r) = frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r^2right]$$
And finally we can integrate this over the surface to get the total force:
$$
begin{align}
F_G &= intlimits_0^R 2pi r p(r) ,dr\
&= frac{4pi^2}{3}Grho^2 intlimits_0^R R^2r - r^3 ,dr\
F_G &= frac{pi^2}{3} G rho^2 R^4tag{G}
end{align}
$$
(I hope this is right: it is dimensionally OK but I might have missed factors somewhere.)
Compared
So, then, given $rho = 10^3,mathrm{kg/m^3}$, $G = 6.7times 10^{-11},mathrm{m^3/(kg s^2)}$, we can solve for the radius $R$ where $F_T$ = $F_G$, and the answer is about $12.8,mathrm{m}$. I was surprised how small this is (and I am worried I have made a mistake therefore).
So if this is right, it means that gravity starts beating surface tension for a ball of water which is about $13,mathrm{m}$ in radius, and beyond that it wins rather rapidly due to the dependence on $R^4$. What this does not tell you is anything about how long it takes something to become spherical: I think that would be a bunch harder to work out.
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
|
show 1 more comment
up vote
22
down vote
accepted
Minimizing energy. If there is a small amount of water, then surface tension wants to try and minimize the surface area of it, and the minimum surface area for a given volume material is a sphere. For really large volumes of water (if you, for instance, sucked all the water out of the oceans and placed it somewhere far away in space in the standard mad-scientist way), then you also get a sphere, but for a different reason: the mass of water wants to minimize its (self-)gravitational potential energy and this is also done when it is spherical. If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical: this is one of the reasons the Moon has a slightly odd shape, for instance.
In between these two regimes -- if you had a few thousand gallons of water for instance, then although it would eventually end up spherical in the absence of other influences, this would take a very long time.
Quantifying the effects
It is interesting to try to quantify the differences between the effects. One way to do this is to consider a spherical ball of water (or anything else, but I'll stick to water because numbers are easy to come by) and consider what force you would need to bisect the sphere and move the two halves apart. Then we can compute the force that would be needed to break the surface tension, and that needed to overcome the gravitational attraction of the two halves.
Surface tension
Let the radius of the ball be $R$, and surface tension be $T$: $T$ has units of force per length. So the total force we need to exert when splitting the sphere is simply the total force exerted by surface tension around a circumference of the sphere, and we can see immediately that this goes like $R$.
$$F_T = 2pi R Ttag{T}$$
For water, $T = 7.3times 10^{-2},mathrm{N/m}$ approximately.
Gravity
This is more complicated. First of all we can say something about the behaviour of the force: the masses of the two hemispheres go like $R^3$, and the separation like $R$, so it's immediately obvious that the force is going to go like $R^3times R^3 / R^2$: like $R^4$ in other words. Gravity is going to win as $R$ gets big!
But we can actually get a number, even though the hemispheres are not, well, spheres, and thus hard to treat gravitationally: if you think about the surface which cuts the the ball into two hemispheres, then what is preventing the ball collapsing inwards across this surface is pressure. So the gravitational force between the two halves of the ball, when they are touching, must be equal to the integral of the pressure over that surface (it took me ages to realise this trick!).
Let's assume the density is uniform, which it won't be for really large objects but it will be for reasonably small ones. Call the density $rho$. Then we can work out the gravitational acceleration at radius $r$ from the centre, relying on the shell theorem and knowing the mass inside $r$ is $m(r) = 4/3 pi r^3$.
$$g(r) = frac{4pi}{3}Grho r$$
And this gives us the pressure at $r$, just by integrating $g$ from $r$ to $R$:
$$
begin{align}
p(r_0) &= intlimits_{r_0}^R rho g(r),dr\
&= frac{4pi}{3} G rho^2 int_{r_0}^R r,dr\
&= frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r_0^2right]
end{align}
$$
or
$$p(r) = frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r^2right]$$
And finally we can integrate this over the surface to get the total force:
$$
begin{align}
F_G &= intlimits_0^R 2pi r p(r) ,dr\
&= frac{4pi^2}{3}Grho^2 intlimits_0^R R^2r - r^3 ,dr\
F_G &= frac{pi^2}{3} G rho^2 R^4tag{G}
end{align}
$$
(I hope this is right: it is dimensionally OK but I might have missed factors somewhere.)
Compared
So, then, given $rho = 10^3,mathrm{kg/m^3}$, $G = 6.7times 10^{-11},mathrm{m^3/(kg s^2)}$, we can solve for the radius $R$ where $F_T$ = $F_G$, and the answer is about $12.8,mathrm{m}$. I was surprised how small this is (and I am worried I have made a mistake therefore).
So if this is right, it means that gravity starts beating surface tension for a ball of water which is about $13,mathrm{m}$ in radius, and beyond that it wins rather rapidly due to the dependence on $R^4$. What this does not tell you is anything about how long it takes something to become spherical: I think that would be a bunch harder to work out.
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
|
show 1 more comment
up vote
22
down vote
accepted
up vote
22
down vote
accepted
Minimizing energy. If there is a small amount of water, then surface tension wants to try and minimize the surface area of it, and the minimum surface area for a given volume material is a sphere. For really large volumes of water (if you, for instance, sucked all the water out of the oceans and placed it somewhere far away in space in the standard mad-scientist way), then you also get a sphere, but for a different reason: the mass of water wants to minimize its (self-)gravitational potential energy and this is also done when it is spherical. If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical: this is one of the reasons the Moon has a slightly odd shape, for instance.
In between these two regimes -- if you had a few thousand gallons of water for instance, then although it would eventually end up spherical in the absence of other influences, this would take a very long time.
Quantifying the effects
It is interesting to try to quantify the differences between the effects. One way to do this is to consider a spherical ball of water (or anything else, but I'll stick to water because numbers are easy to come by) and consider what force you would need to bisect the sphere and move the two halves apart. Then we can compute the force that would be needed to break the surface tension, and that needed to overcome the gravitational attraction of the two halves.
Surface tension
Let the radius of the ball be $R$, and surface tension be $T$: $T$ has units of force per length. So the total force we need to exert when splitting the sphere is simply the total force exerted by surface tension around a circumference of the sphere, and we can see immediately that this goes like $R$.
$$F_T = 2pi R Ttag{T}$$
For water, $T = 7.3times 10^{-2},mathrm{N/m}$ approximately.
Gravity
This is more complicated. First of all we can say something about the behaviour of the force: the masses of the two hemispheres go like $R^3$, and the separation like $R$, so it's immediately obvious that the force is going to go like $R^3times R^3 / R^2$: like $R^4$ in other words. Gravity is going to win as $R$ gets big!
But we can actually get a number, even though the hemispheres are not, well, spheres, and thus hard to treat gravitationally: if you think about the surface which cuts the the ball into two hemispheres, then what is preventing the ball collapsing inwards across this surface is pressure. So the gravitational force between the two halves of the ball, when they are touching, must be equal to the integral of the pressure over that surface (it took me ages to realise this trick!).
Let's assume the density is uniform, which it won't be for really large objects but it will be for reasonably small ones. Call the density $rho$. Then we can work out the gravitational acceleration at radius $r$ from the centre, relying on the shell theorem and knowing the mass inside $r$ is $m(r) = 4/3 pi r^3$.
$$g(r) = frac{4pi}{3}Grho r$$
And this gives us the pressure at $r$, just by integrating $g$ from $r$ to $R$:
$$
begin{align}
p(r_0) &= intlimits_{r_0}^R rho g(r),dr\
&= frac{4pi}{3} G rho^2 int_{r_0}^R r,dr\
&= frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r_0^2right]
end{align}
$$
or
$$p(r) = frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r^2right]$$
And finally we can integrate this over the surface to get the total force:
$$
begin{align}
F_G &= intlimits_0^R 2pi r p(r) ,dr\
&= frac{4pi^2}{3}Grho^2 intlimits_0^R R^2r - r^3 ,dr\
F_G &= frac{pi^2}{3} G rho^2 R^4tag{G}
end{align}
$$
(I hope this is right: it is dimensionally OK but I might have missed factors somewhere.)
Compared
So, then, given $rho = 10^3,mathrm{kg/m^3}$, $G = 6.7times 10^{-11},mathrm{m^3/(kg s^2)}$, we can solve for the radius $R$ where $F_T$ = $F_G$, and the answer is about $12.8,mathrm{m}$. I was surprised how small this is (and I am worried I have made a mistake therefore).
So if this is right, it means that gravity starts beating surface tension for a ball of water which is about $13,mathrm{m}$ in radius, and beyond that it wins rather rapidly due to the dependence on $R^4$. What this does not tell you is anything about how long it takes something to become spherical: I think that would be a bunch harder to work out.
Minimizing energy. If there is a small amount of water, then surface tension wants to try and minimize the surface area of it, and the minimum surface area for a given volume material is a sphere. For really large volumes of water (if you, for instance, sucked all the water out of the oceans and placed it somewhere far away in space in the standard mad-scientist way), then you also get a sphere, but for a different reason: the mass of water wants to minimize its (self-)gravitational potential energy and this is also done when it is spherical. If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical: this is one of the reasons the Moon has a slightly odd shape, for instance.
In between these two regimes -- if you had a few thousand gallons of water for instance, then although it would eventually end up spherical in the absence of other influences, this would take a very long time.
Quantifying the effects
It is interesting to try to quantify the differences between the effects. One way to do this is to consider a spherical ball of water (or anything else, but I'll stick to water because numbers are easy to come by) and consider what force you would need to bisect the sphere and move the two halves apart. Then we can compute the force that would be needed to break the surface tension, and that needed to overcome the gravitational attraction of the two halves.
Surface tension
Let the radius of the ball be $R$, and surface tension be $T$: $T$ has units of force per length. So the total force we need to exert when splitting the sphere is simply the total force exerted by surface tension around a circumference of the sphere, and we can see immediately that this goes like $R$.
$$F_T = 2pi R Ttag{T}$$
For water, $T = 7.3times 10^{-2},mathrm{N/m}$ approximately.
Gravity
This is more complicated. First of all we can say something about the behaviour of the force: the masses of the two hemispheres go like $R^3$, and the separation like $R$, so it's immediately obvious that the force is going to go like $R^3times R^3 / R^2$: like $R^4$ in other words. Gravity is going to win as $R$ gets big!
But we can actually get a number, even though the hemispheres are not, well, spheres, and thus hard to treat gravitationally: if you think about the surface which cuts the the ball into two hemispheres, then what is preventing the ball collapsing inwards across this surface is pressure. So the gravitational force between the two halves of the ball, when they are touching, must be equal to the integral of the pressure over that surface (it took me ages to realise this trick!).
Let's assume the density is uniform, which it won't be for really large objects but it will be for reasonably small ones. Call the density $rho$. Then we can work out the gravitational acceleration at radius $r$ from the centre, relying on the shell theorem and knowing the mass inside $r$ is $m(r) = 4/3 pi r^3$.
$$g(r) = frac{4pi}{3}Grho r$$
And this gives us the pressure at $r$, just by integrating $g$ from $r$ to $R$:
$$
begin{align}
p(r_0) &= intlimits_{r_0}^R rho g(r),dr\
&= frac{4pi}{3} G rho^2 int_{r_0}^R r,dr\
&= frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r_0^2right]
end{align}
$$
or
$$p(r) = frac{2pi}{3} G rho^2 left[R^2 - r^2right]$$
And finally we can integrate this over the surface to get the total force:
$$
begin{align}
F_G &= intlimits_0^R 2pi r p(r) ,dr\
&= frac{4pi^2}{3}Grho^2 intlimits_0^R R^2r - r^3 ,dr\
F_G &= frac{pi^2}{3} G rho^2 R^4tag{G}
end{align}
$$
(I hope this is right: it is dimensionally OK but I might have missed factors somewhere.)
Compared
So, then, given $rho = 10^3,mathrm{kg/m^3}$, $G = 6.7times 10^{-11},mathrm{m^3/(kg s^2)}$, we can solve for the radius $R$ where $F_T$ = $F_G$, and the answer is about $12.8,mathrm{m}$. I was surprised how small this is (and I am worried I have made a mistake therefore).
So if this is right, it means that gravity starts beating surface tension for a ball of water which is about $13,mathrm{m}$ in radius, and beyond that it wins rather rapidly due to the dependence on $R^4$. What this does not tell you is anything about how long it takes something to become spherical: I think that would be a bunch harder to work out.
edited Nov 27 at 15:20
answered Nov 23 at 15:43
tfb
14.6k42849
14.6k42849
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
|
show 1 more comment
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
"If such a volume is in the presence of external gravitational field (for instance if it was orbiting the Earth) then it would not be completely spherical". To be precise: it has to be orbiting for it to be non-spherical. Just being in the presence is not enough.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:04
1
1
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@fishinear Being in presence of Earth's gravity is also enough to have an elongated shape: there is a gradient of gravitational potential. That's the same reason why we have tides on Earth: the water mass is slightly stretched by the Sun and the Moon.
– jjmontes
Nov 24 at 18:41
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
@jjmontes My mistake, you are correct. It's because the gravitational field is non-uniform
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 19:08
1
1
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
Could you quantify the relative strength of surface tension vs. gravity, depending on amount of water? And wouldn't the "very long time" in all cases (i.e. also when it is not so long) depend on how "excess energy" is gotten rid of?
– Hagen von Eitzen
Nov 24 at 21:48
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
@HagenvonEitzen: that's an interesting question: I can't, off the top of my head. I think I can give a dimensional argument as to why gravity wins, which I'll try to do.
– tfb
Nov 25 at 14:36
|
show 1 more comment
up vote
37
down vote
No, it's not because of gravity. You need to take quite a lot of water in order for gravitational effects to become significant.
It's because of surface tension. Sphere is a shape which minimizes the surface for a given volume. The surface-tension-related potential energy of the water is proportional to the surface, so spherical shape minimizes the potential energy.
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
add a comment |
up vote
37
down vote
No, it's not because of gravity. You need to take quite a lot of water in order for gravitational effects to become significant.
It's because of surface tension. Sphere is a shape which minimizes the surface for a given volume. The surface-tension-related potential energy of the water is proportional to the surface, so spherical shape minimizes the potential energy.
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
add a comment |
up vote
37
down vote
up vote
37
down vote
No, it's not because of gravity. You need to take quite a lot of water in order for gravitational effects to become significant.
It's because of surface tension. Sphere is a shape which minimizes the surface for a given volume. The surface-tension-related potential energy of the water is proportional to the surface, so spherical shape minimizes the potential energy.
No, it's not because of gravity. You need to take quite a lot of water in order for gravitational effects to become significant.
It's because of surface tension. Sphere is a shape which minimizes the surface for a given volume. The surface-tension-related potential energy of the water is proportional to the surface, so spherical shape minimizes the potential energy.
answered Nov 23 at 15:36
lesnik
2,0641612
2,0641612
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
add a comment |
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
15
15
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
Fun fact: this is the same reason that bubbles are round!
– Paul Belanger
Nov 23 at 18:11
9
9
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
What is your "No" in reponse to? There's nothing in the question that mentions gravity.
– Barmar
Nov 23 at 20:57
9
9
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
@Barmar Originally there was (the only) tag "gravity".
– lesnik
Nov 23 at 21:06
2
2
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
Ahh, didn't notice that edit. But I suspect they were thinking about the lack of gravity in space, not gravity holding the water globule together.
– Barmar
Nov 24 at 11:00
add a comment |
up vote
4
down vote
I’m sure that a chemist could give a deeper answer. Or from Wikipedia we get, the surface tension occurs because water has hydrogen bonding.
Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces.
The key are the 4 possible hydrogen bonds to other water molecules of liquid water. The water molecules are bonded to each other like a free dimensional mesh.
Heating water, the water could be sprayed out in space to small pieces of course. The hydrogen bonds are weak (compared to metallic bonds) and under the influence of heat transfer the kinetic energy of the water molecules increases and the hydrogen bonds get broken.
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
add a comment |
up vote
4
down vote
I’m sure that a chemist could give a deeper answer. Or from Wikipedia we get, the surface tension occurs because water has hydrogen bonding.
Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces.
The key are the 4 possible hydrogen bonds to other water molecules of liquid water. The water molecules are bonded to each other like a free dimensional mesh.
Heating water, the water could be sprayed out in space to small pieces of course. The hydrogen bonds are weak (compared to metallic bonds) and under the influence of heat transfer the kinetic energy of the water molecules increases and the hydrogen bonds get broken.
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
add a comment |
up vote
4
down vote
up vote
4
down vote
I’m sure that a chemist could give a deeper answer. Or from Wikipedia we get, the surface tension occurs because water has hydrogen bonding.
Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces.
The key are the 4 possible hydrogen bonds to other water molecules of liquid water. The water molecules are bonded to each other like a free dimensional mesh.
Heating water, the water could be sprayed out in space to small pieces of course. The hydrogen bonds are weak (compared to metallic bonds) and under the influence of heat transfer the kinetic energy of the water molecules increases and the hydrogen bonds get broken.
I’m sure that a chemist could give a deeper answer. Or from Wikipedia we get, the surface tension occurs because water has hydrogen bonding.
Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension and capillary forces.
The key are the 4 possible hydrogen bonds to other water molecules of liquid water. The water molecules are bonded to each other like a free dimensional mesh.
Heating water, the water could be sprayed out in space to small pieces of course. The hydrogen bonds are weak (compared to metallic bonds) and under the influence of heat transfer the kinetic energy of the water molecules increases and the hydrogen bonds get broken.
answered Nov 23 at 17:45
HolgerFiedler
3,91831133
3,91831133
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
add a comment |
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
1
1
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
Surface tension is not particular to water: all liquids will form a sphere in outer space. Even magma will do that, which is why planets are spherical.
– fishinear
Nov 24 at 14:07
add a comment |