In my experiment, I floated a tiny styrofoam boat in a tray of water, and then compared it to when I put dish soap on the bottom of the boat. Once there was soap at the bottom of he boat, there was virtually no friction, and the boat glided around easily on it's own.
I thought it was pretty interesting that there was no surface tension on the boat when it had soap on it, so I decided to do some research. Apparently soap has two different molecules, a hydrophilic and hydrophobic. ne mixes with water, and the other doesn't In a soap-and-water solution the hydrophobic ends of the soap molecule do not want to be in the liquid at all. Those that find their way to the surface squeeze their way between the surface water molecules, pushing their hydrophobic ends out of the water. This separates the water molecules from each other. Since the surface tension forces become smaller as the distance between water molecules increases, the intervening soap molecules decrease the surface tension, and then the boat floats around relatively easily.
I didn't really know what would happen in this lab, so I didn't have any expectations. I wasn't surprised, but I didn't suspect anything in particular either. But the experiment was still really interesting regardless.
This lab helped me learn something new. To be completely honest, I don't know if I will ever use the information later in my life, but I still think it's good to know lot of things, even if it isn't useful to me in the moment.
I thought it was pretty interesting that there was no surface tension on the boat when it had soap on it, so I decided to do some research. Apparently soap has two different molecules, a hydrophilic and hydrophobic. ne mixes with water, and the other doesn't In a soap-and-water solution the hydrophobic ends of the soap molecule do not want to be in the liquid at all. Those that find their way to the surface squeeze their way between the surface water molecules, pushing their hydrophobic ends out of the water. This separates the water molecules from each other. Since the surface tension forces become smaller as the distance between water molecules increases, the intervening soap molecules decrease the surface tension, and then the boat floats around relatively easily.
I didn't really know what would happen in this lab, so I didn't have any expectations. I wasn't surprised, but I didn't suspect anything in particular either. But the experiment was still really interesting regardless.
This lab helped me learn something new. To be completely honest, I don't know if I will ever use the information later in my life, but I still think it's good to know lot of things, even if it isn't useful to me in the moment.