Why does water flow off the penny only after multiple drops? How come that the penny « catches » it?

Question

Coming from this post:

Drops of water on a penny from oddlysatisfying

Thanks!

In: Physics

Answer 1

Water has really high surface tension. Basically water likes to stick to itself and it takes a bit of effort/force to make it separate.

So what you are seeing is basically the water molecules all holding hands to stick together until there are just too many of them and their handholds break.