Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena. Drops, Bubbles, Pearls, Waves

The study of capillarity and related phenomena requires both an acute faculty of observation and an intensity of imagination that truly allow one to see "all the world in a grain of sand." The process by which morning dew condenses into the unstable droplets that grace a spider's web, for example, has important implications for the industrial treatment of textile fibers. And an appreciation of underlying physical principles provides an answer to common questions about everyday phenomena—for example, why large drops of rain roll down a car windshield, while others descend leaving a trail of water behind them.