• Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    And I will continue to assail your hill with; wet is a property that water has.

    Wet is simply the surface tension balance of a substance. If a fluid sticks to somthing, it is wet. You can wet your brush, yes, but also wet a soldering iron, or wet every surface with superfluid. Wet refers to the conducting of fluid, capillary action, all the effects of surface tension adhering to something.

    How wetting a substance is of another substance is usually measured by the angle a droplet makes upon contact. More sticky (adhesive) and less blobby (cohesive) means more wetting. Cohesion being simply self-adhesion means any fluid with surface tension necessarily totally wets itself, otherwise it’s a gas. And since water is a cohesive liquid (with a rather strong surface tension), it is by definition wet.