I recently soaked my sons onesie overnight in water and oxiclean. The legs and feet were sticking out of the bowl onto the counter. The next morning most of the water had traveled up and out though the legs (this bowl was not short either, it was part
Of our salad spinner.)
In: 142
That is the [Capillary Action](https://study.com/learn/lesson/capillary-action.html).
Essentially, the water mixture is viscous (sticky) so as soon as it takes hold somewhere it is easy for more water to flow there, and it has more (energy/force/not sure here) than gravity.
This is called [Capillary Action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action) where the water can climb up through the fibers of the onesie. It also can be seen if you were to dip the edge of a paper towel into a puddle of water. You will see the towel start to soak up the water.
Water molecules have a positively charged side and negatively charged side. The molecules that make up the fabric *also* have a mix of positively charged and negatively charged sections. Opposite charges attract, causing the fabric to literally pull the water up into itself, further and further through the empty spaces in between the individual fabric threads. The relevant search term is “capillary action”.
Gravity is not an especially strong force, and is *routinely* and pretty easily “defied” by electromagnetism. See also: every magnet on your fridge.
Wow, it’s fascinating how water can defy gravity like that! I guess water molecules have a special ability to move against the force of gravity, and in this case, they chose to travel up and out through the legs of the onesie
Nature always finds a way to surprise us!
“capilllary action” is also what allows a computer chip to operate and a tornado to tear things up.
It happens due to osmotic pressure.
An object such as a rock on a hill has potential energy. Push the rock and it falls to the bottom of the hill, releasing that energy. Once at the bottom, the energy is exhausted. To get more energy out, you have to push the rock back up the hill.
Porous materials have a similar potential energy that creates osmotic pressure. When liquid is applied, this potential energy tries to make the two sides of the material balance, such that they have equal liquid on both sides. This potential energy pulls the liquid through the material in all directions, including up.
Once the liquid permeates the porous material, the potential energy is exhausted. To get more energy out, you have to replenish that potential energy. Evaporation adds energy, which dries out the material and restores that energy.
So long as there is energy to evaporate the liquid, this process can pull up more liquid indefinitely. This is what allows trees to pull water out of the ground and up to their leaves where it evaporates.
EDIT: As was pointed out in a reply, I have confused osmotic pressure with capillary action.
It is not osmotic pressure that causes this. Capillary action gets its energy from a tendency for dry materials to pull at water (adhesion), some more than others. This is why some surfaces get wet all over and some “bead up” and make separate droplets. The surfaces that bead up have low adhesion so the water’s tendency to clump together (cohesion) overrides adhesion and makes a shape closer to a sphere.
With capillary action, high adhesion combined with small tubes (effectively it focuses adhesion onto a smaller area) allows adhesion to overcome cohesion and gravity.
Other than that, what I said above applies. The adhesion contains potential energy that overcomes gravity but gets “used up” by becoming wet. Any additional tendency to rise is caused when evaporation dries out the material at the top, refilling the pool of potential energy.
That’s so interesting! Water can defy gravity through a process called capillary action, where it moves against gravity due to the forces of adhesion and cohesion.
So was the counter soaking wet and the bowl was mostly emptied? Were the feet lower than the bottom of the bowl?
After water absorbs up through the fabric and goes up and over the rim of the bowl, it will start to drip out of the feet. The feet can absorb more water out of the bowl as it drips out. So they can slowly pull water out of the bowl, then it’s lost to the counter.
A similar dynamic is why you can make sure cups with lids dry out by leaving a paper towel half in and half out of the lid. It makes the inside as dry the air outside.
Another way to consider it is that the onesie acted like the wick in a oil lamp or a zippo lighter.
Yes it is still capillary action, but some people understand the wicking action easier.
The answers are correct that capillary actions are to blame. But it might interest you and others that given an even more perfect liquid than water, this can even happen _without_ the cloth! [Welcome to the world of superfluid helium!](https://youtu.be/2Z6UJbwxBZI?si=AIs-zhFjms8KaSag&t=60)
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