Why does washing up liquid break the surface tension of water?
926256
Normally, the soap we used is sodium or potassium salt made from the mixture of a sodium or potassium solution with fat acid.  Therefore, sodium palmitate, for example, is a salt and also a soap we used daily.  When sodium palmitate is dissolved by water, it will ionize into sodium ion and palmitate ion.  Palmitate ion is made out of two parts which is the hydrophobic part and the hydrophilic part.  The hydrophobic part will dissolves in grease or oil but not water, while the hydrophilic part will dissolve in water but not grease or oil.  In short, the hydrophobic part of the ion dislikes water while the hydrophilic part of the ion likes water.  Therefore, the hydrophilic part of the palmitate ion will dissolve in water, reducing or breaking the surface tension of water as the hydrophilic part of the ion forces itself into the neat structure of the water.  Therefore, the neat structure of the water will be broken up, causing the surface tension of water to break up.  For your information, palmitate ion is the one doing all the cleaning, breaking up the dirt on our clothes.  As for detergent, it ionizes into sulfonate ion and has two parts as well.  The mechanism of detergent breaking the surface tension of water is the same as the mechanism of soap.  I hope you understand what I’m saying as I learn all these in a different language.  Sorry if I wrote the wrong terms.
604112
I thing you are referring to surface tension pulling the water up the tube. The water can't be pulled past the end of the tube since there is no tube after that to pull on. In other words the water doesn't know the tube is too short until it gets to the end.
950381
It takes energy not only to break up the solid solute into its individual particles, but also to force the solvent molecules apart.  Now, if the solute can offer the solvent some very attractive forces (like sodium ions and chloride ions do from table salt) the whole process will work. The energy required to break up chalk is just too great.
433431
calm water has greater surface tension, which would cause more stress. surface tension is what make small amounts of water turn into drops, and you can float a needle on its side in calm water even though it will sink if you just drop it in. the tension in the water is like the skin of a drum, but in rough water the skin has been ripped and is no longer tight.
933504
The gas that forms in boiling water is still water but it is in its gaseous state. Remember that water can be solid (ice when temperature is 0C or below), liquid (when temperature is above 0C), and gas (steam - when its temperature is 100C or above). When you heat the water, its temperature rises. When the temperature reaches 100C, water starts to boil because it reaches its boiling point - where it changes from liquid to gas. That's why you see bubbles.\n\nAlso, please note that heating is not enough to break the bonds of H2O. It needs very high energy to do so. Hence, H2 and O2 are not formed during boiling of water.
1183305
Because water (H2O) is a polar substance... meaning that the molecules are balanced... positives and negatives.\nOil, on the other hand, is a non-polar substance.\n\nIf you follow the theory of "like dissolves like", a non-polar solute (oil) would NOT dissolve in a polar solvent (H2O).\n\nSo... they don't dissolve in each other... they just kind of sit on top of each other.\n\nI hope that made sense!
563015
actually its the friction that removes the germs not the soap.the soap binds with oils,grease and dead skin cells to remove them.
1017764
It is due to the hydrogens bonding to the oxygens. Water always easily breaks up into H+ and OH-, and therefore attracts polar molecules. Also, keep in mind things dissolved into water are either polar or nonpolar, so it based on what is being dissovled into water, it can either become ionized  (break into particles that are charged) or not.
1140715
1. surface tension of water. See the different surface tension of different liquids in different containers, e.g. test tubes, beakers, glass, etc... Another is look at the surface tension of water at the glass or beaker, would a thread, pin , paper would float? And when a detergent powder was added what would happen?\n2. geology, look around, look around the environment, are the rocks the same? gather as many as possible rocks and differentiate each of them. In other words classify them.\n3. Do an investigatory project about the faces of the moon, draw them.\n4. Give or look for evidences or proofs that the earth is round.
531135
The weight of water does not change when it freezes, so the bubble would not fall to the ground due to its weight--it would continue to drift and float. However, bubbles are held together due to the surface tension of water and the way that a surficant (such as soap) stabilizes the bubble, so a frozen bubble may not be stable.
279907
It's a one-shot increase, as you probably know. That is, you can't make a perpetual pump by letting the water flow out from the capillary tube through a hole drilled somewhere below the top of the water column. Like other one-shots that seem to be a free ride, such as tossing rocks into the Grand Canyon, the capillary effect can be viewed as trading one form of energy for another. The input energy in this case is the potential energy of the empty capillary. It takes energy to drive the water back out of the capillary.\nSurface tension acts like a stretched elastic membrane. It is always trying to minimize its free surface area (that is, surface that is not contacting and wetting some solid). If you have a number of small droplets on a non-wettable surface like waxed paper, and you bring them all together, they form a single drop whose center of mass is higher than when they were all separate. The energy to do this comes from the elastic contraction of the water surface. Note that surface tension that forms drops produces a convex free surface. Water in a capillary wets the walls of the tube above the water level by adhesion, and surface tension tries to minimize the surface area by pulling the water column up to flatten the upper surface (the meniscus). Eventually an equilibrium is reached where the surface tension balances the weight of the water column, which stretches the surface downward making a concave meniscus. See the ref. for a fuller explanation of surface tension.
319637
Any washing liquid will be a mixture of various substances, usually water-based.\n\nStandard components are detergents - molecules with a polar and an apolar end which can absorb on fatty (lipophile) substances and provide solution in the polar medium with their polar end. Classical soaps are sodium salts of fatty acids.\n\nOther ingredients vary strongly with the purpose of the washing up liquid. Perfumes, enzymes to digest specific types of pollutants, bleaching agents (usually oxydative), emulgators, Calcium-removers (like polyphosphate, zeoliths or chelating agents)...
161590
Most over the counter rubbing alcohol is 70% isopropanol alcohol 30% distilled water.\n\nSurface tension can be measured with scientific devices called Tensiometer.\n\nPure water has a surface tension of 72 dynes/cm. If a solution containing an alcohol concentration of 10% to 25% the surface tension will be reduced to 35-45 dynes/cm \n\nRubbing Alcohol has a much higher concentration so it would reduce the surface tension even more.  Soap is another compound that reduces the surface tension of water.  Typically compounds that do this kind of thing are called Surfactants.  \n\nSurfactants interact with water by disrupting or modifying the hydrogen bonding network of water. Since this reduces the cohesive forces in water, this leads to reduction in the surface tension
501598
Water molecules attract each other. This is called cohesion. \nThe oxygen end of water has a negative charge and the hydrogen end has a positive charge. The hydrogens of one water molecule are attracted to the oxygen from other water molecules. This attractive force is what gives water its cohesive properties.\n\nSurface tension is the name we give to the cohesion of water molecules at the surface of a body of water. It is the reasons that water contracts in drops.\nWhat is happening? Each molecule in the water drop is attracted to the other water molecules in the drop. This causes the water to pull itself into a shape with the smallest amount of surface area, a sphere. All the water molecules on the surface of the bead are 'holding' each other together or creating surface tension.\n\nSurface tension allows water striders to 'skate' across the top of a pond. You can experiment with surface tension. Try floating a pin or a paperclip on the top if a glass of water. A metal pin or paper clip is heavier than water, but because of the surface tension the water is able to hold up the metal.
779604
It's just slightly less dense than water which has a density of 1.0.  So if a solution of the two were mixed the water would be at the bottom and this liquid would be on top.
1041105
It's not surface tension, it's inertia.\nWhen you put your hand into the water, the water moves out of the way. But there is a limit to how fast water can move out of the way.\nWhen something hits the water going fast, during the moment of impact, the water can't move very far at all so it is essentially solid.\n\nIf you can water ski across the surface of the water at around 20 mph because at that speed the water is "stiff" enough to support you. You can ski barefoot and a surface area of less than a square foot at 40 mph.  They say at 70 mph, the water is as hard as concrete when you hit it.
315092
Water and impurities in the water cause friction.