Surface tension questions.
1 ) The water strider is an insect that can float and walk on the surface of lakes, ponds, and rivers. Assuming that the weight of a water strider is 0.1 mN, and it has four long feet (it has two short feet in the front as well, but we are ignoring them). Each foot bears ¼ of its weight and can be approximated as a cylinder of radius 100 ?m, lying horizontally on water. Assuming that the liquid-air interface in contact with the feet is pointed 45 degrees upwards (see the schematic). Surface tension of water-air interface is 72 mN/m
a. What is the minimum length of each foot required to support its weight?
b. The actual length of each foot is 5 mm. How many times of its weight can the legs support?
2) Introduce another method of measuring surface/interface tension, discuss some potential advantages or disadvantages of this method compared to other methods