3 ms·

It feels intuitive that a thin fluid on a low-friction surface (like water) would spread out "as much as possible" given enough time. There certainly may be con

It feels intuitive that a thin fluid on a low-friction surface (like water) would spread out "as much as possible" given enough time. There certainly may be confounding factors, but it seems like a reasonable thing to pin as an "assumption" in a hypothesis. I.e. he didn't have to "know" - assumptions are OK, and I don't feel like this one is huge.

chmod775 2y ago
> It feels intuitive that a thin fluid on a low-friction surface (like water) would spread out "as much as possible" given enough time. Most fluids do not behave this way in most circumstances, because of surface tension, so it's really not intuitive. This experiments is one of the few ways you can get an accurate measurement. Many other fluids will either mix or end up as bubbles/blobs many orders of magnitude thicker than a molecule.
komali2 2y ago
I'm confused, the blog wrote "known amount of water," so was it a closed little area like a bathtub? If you added a ton of oil wouldn't it spread out as much as possible aka 600 molecules thick or whatever? Or did he pour it into a huge lake or something?
- Cheer2171 2y ago
  One drop in a soup bowl sized petri dish, measure the area it covers.
  - komali2 2y ago
    Surely the first thing to test would be dropping it in increasingly large soup bowls until there's obvious gaps?
    - kqr 2y ago
      How would the gaps be obvious? I'm not sure I could tell 1 molecule from 0 molecules when it comes to the thickness of oil film.
- MereInterest 2y ago
  My understanding is that the actual body of water was larger, but that the oil would only spread out to one molecule of thickness. So you start with a larger area of water, and measure the diameter of the resulting oil slick.