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Re: drops versus drips



At 11:27 AM 9/8/00 -0600, Larry Smith wrote:
Does water dropping from an orifice make drops ...

At 12:39 AM 9/10/00 -0500, Jack Uretsky responded:
What is your reasoning? The drop is initially in free fall, until
viscosity begins to play a role. In free fall the competing forces are
surface tension and the force arising from the pressure in the liquid?

That isn't relevant to Larry's question, which did not concern the dynamics
of free-falling drops, but rather the quasi-static formation of drops
(drips?) at the end of a dropper.

For an interesting tirade about the physical differences in the two cases,
see Alistair B. Fraser's "Bad Science" web pages at e.g.
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html
and in particular
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadRain.html
Indeed Fraser has adopted the conventional "teardrop raindrop" as his
emblem for Bad Science.
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadSymbol.html