Why Raindrops Are Mathematically Impossible
Rain shouldn't happen, according to basic physics. Click here to watch the MinuteEarth video about rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87v_9Bud7vw This video supported by Audible.com/minutephysi...
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There’s lots of physics going on in raindrops: cohesion, adhesion, air resistance – Imean, falling raindrops often look more like jellyfish than teardrops – but perhaps mostfascinating is the physics that makes raindrops impossible.You might think making a raindrop is easy – just cool water vapor in the air pastits condensation point, and it condenses into liquid droplets, right? But there’s a bigproblem standing, almost literally, in the way: the surface of the droplets themselves.Liquids hate surfaces – they're bound by the laws of intermolecular attraction to pulltogether in an attempt to minimize the size of their surfaces. That’s why small waterdroplets are spherical, why you can put a huge amount of water on a penny, and why bubblesf...
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There’s lots of physics going on in raindrops: cohesion, adhesion, air resistance – Imean, falling raindrops often look more like jellyfish than teardrops – but perhaps mostfascinating is the physics that makes raindrops impossible.You might think making a raindrop is easy – just cool water vapor in the air pastits condensation point, and it condenses into liquid droplets, right? But there’s a bigproblem standing, almost literally, in the way: the surface of the droplets themselves.Liquids hate surfaces – they're bound by the laws of intermolecular attraction to pulltogether in an attempt to minimize the size of their surfaces. That’s why small waterdroplets are spherical, why you can put a huge amount of water on a penny, and why bubblesf...
