Eli5: How does wringing or squeezing a cloth make water come out?
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A dry cloth includes a signfiicant amount of void space between the fibers and threads.
The surface tension between water and these fibers allows water to stick to the fibers, spanning these voids and filling them.
When you squeeze a cloth, you are squeezing the void space into a smaller volume. Because water isn’t compressible, it needs somewhere to go, so it comes out of the cloth.
Ok. I’ll take this as a serious question.
The cloth is made up of fibres which are able to retain water/moisture. As well as that, the fibres are woven together to create the cloth. This also creates spaces between the fibres which can also retain water/moisture. Depending on the quality/thickness/age of the cloth the capacity of retention may be more or less.
Any external pressure will lessen the capacity therefore the expulsion of water/moisture. Like a whoopie cushion but not with the sound effects. The more pressure applied, the more expulsion of liquid.
The spin cycle of a washing machine is another example of how force can be applied. It is the compression of the material and therefore denying space for the liquid to be retained.
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