I was going to fill a glass with water and while doing so, I lost attention until it reached a point where it was more than the capacity the glass could take and it didn’t overflow, I stopped it just in time to witness it going above the glass but not spilling. This has made me so confused and I thought I was seeing things. I’m sure there’s some science behind it but googling it did not give me an answer I could understand.
(I’m adding the “physics” post flair to this because I think this comes under physics. I may be very wrong though. Please let me know if I am.)
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This will probably get removed because it’s short, but 2 words: surface tension.
This was demonstrated on a penny with droplets of water which created a done before finally spilling. Water is pretty cool that way
From what I remember, water molucles “like to be together”. We did the experiment on pennies at school to show that water holds together remarkably well for something of its viscosity, and it’s to do with the atoms and their charges.
I’m sure someone smarter can explain this in more detail than I.
Water is fairly strongly attracted to itself. This is called “cohesion”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohesion_(chemistry)
Basically, when you overfill a cup there’s a small time where the water holding onto itself is stronger than gravity trying to flatten it and make it spill out of the cup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_tension
The force that makes water molecules want to stick together is called the “Van Der Waals” force.
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