MonoMonday: (Surface) Tension

Many thanks to Laurie54 who's hosting MM this month - today the chosen theme is "Tension".

As I pondered what to blip, my Editor suggested "Surface Tension", an idea which (as a nerd) I immediately liked. But how to represent it?

I tried photographing the slightly curved meniscus at the edge of a glass of water but that was underwhelming. I wanted a narrower glass tube. Then I remembered that I have a fancy wine aerator (definitely a first-world gadget!) - if you've forgotten to open your red wine bottle in good time to alow it to "breathe" you can pour it through this gadget which gives just the right amount of aeration (so they say...I'm not really sure that my palate is sensitive enough to tell the difference!).

Anyway I placed it in front of a frosted glass window (to get a nice background effect) and tried pouring water through it; I'd blocked the outlet so ended up with a large air bubble below a layer of water, with some tiny bubbles in the water layer as you can see.

Surface tension at the water-air interface causes bubbles to adopt a round shape, and causes the slight curvature of the meniscus.

I'd accidentally spilt some of the water down the outside of the gadget which fortuitously left some droplets adhering the the sides: surface tension gives them their round shape too and also allows them to hang onto the glass.

Blip done!