DISCOVERING THE "LAW OF CAPILLARITY" - "LAW OF SURFACE TENSION"

EÖTVÖS. L. (LORÁND). (ROLAND V.) -

Ueber den Zusammenhang der Oberflächenspannung der Flüssigkeiten mit ihrem Molecularvolumen.

(Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1886)

Without wrappers as issued in "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg. von G. Wiedemann.", Neue Folge Bd. 27, Drittes Heft Heft (No 6 1886). Entire issue offered. Pp. 321-480 a. 2 folded plates. Eótvós's paper: pp. 448-459. Clean and fine.

First appearance of this important paper in which Eötvös set forth his "Law of Capillarity" and thereby eliminating the errors that had twarted his predecessors such as Young, Laplace, Poisson and Gauss. The principle thus established, also called "The weak equivalence Principle", served as a BASIS FOR EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF RELATIVITY
(Capillarity: the property or exertion of capillary attraction of repulsion, a force that is the resultant of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension in liquids which are in contact with solids, causing the liquid surface to rise or be depressed...)

"The beginnings of Eötvös’ scientific career are connected with liquids. He worked out a new way to determine surface tension, which subsequently became known as the reflection method. This method made it possible to determine precisely the surface tension of various liquids. During his experiments, Eötvós found a linear relationship between the molar surface energy of liquids
and their temperature. The proportionality factor is constant for all compound liquids independently of their composition. The molar surface energy is equal to the work needed to move one molecule from the inside of the liquid to its surface. Based on this finding, Eötvös was able to state the following relationship: with increasing temperature, the surface tension of a liquid decreases until, at the critical temperature, it becomes zero. Later this rule was named the Eótvös law and the proportionality constant the Eötvós constant. In case of liquids this constant is as fundamental as the universal gas constant in case of gases."

Order-nr.: 43754