Change the chapter
Question
Suppose water is raised by capillary action to a height of 5.00 cm in a glass tube. (a) To what height will it be raised in a paraffin tube of the same radius? (b) In a silver tube of the same radius?
1. $-1.46 \textrm{ cm}$
2. $0.00 \textrm{ cm}$
Solution Video

# OpenStax College Physics for AP® Courses Solution, Chapter 11, Problem 63 (Problems & Exercises) (2:31)

Rating

No votes have been submitted yet.

Quiz Mode

Why is this button here? Quiz Mode is a chance to try solving the problem first on your own before viewing the solution. One of the following will probably happen:

1. You get the answer. Congratulations! It feels good! There might still be more to learn, and you might enjoy comparing your problem solving approach to the best practices demonstrated in the solution video.
2. You don't get the answer. This is OK! In fact it's awesome, despite the difficult feelings you might have about it. When you don't get the answer, your mind is ready for learning. Think about how much you really want the solution! Your mind will gobble it up when it sees it. Attempting the problem is like trying to assemble the pieces of a puzzle. If you don't get the answer, the gaps in the puzzle are questions that are ready and searching to be filled. This is an active process, where your mind is turned on - learning will happen!
If you wish to show the answer immediately without having to click "Reveal Answer", you may . Quiz Mode is disabled by default, but you can check the Enable Quiz Mode checkbox when editing your profile to re-enable it any time you want. College Physics Answers cares a lot about academic integrity. Quiz Mode is encouragement to use the solutions in a way that is most beneficial for your learning.

## Calculator Screenshots

Video Transcript
This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. The height the water is raised up in a glass tube is two times the surface tension of water multiplied by cosine of the contact angle between glass and water, divided by the density of water times g times the radius of the tube that it's experiencing the capillary action in. So in paraffin wax, we have the same formula except there is a different contact angle but every other factor is the same, it's still water we're dealing with so we're still using the surface tension of water and the density of water. It's the same size tube we're told so the radius does not need a subscript. So let's take the ratio of these two heights and that's going to be this thing copied here, and then multiplied by the reciprocal of this instead of dividing by it because we don't want a fraction within a fraction since that looks difficult and complicated. So we're going to multiply by its reciprocal and we see that a lot of common factors cancel. We have all these things disappearing. There. We're left with the ratio of the angles, contact angles, is equal to the ratio of the heights. So we multiply both sides by the height in glass because we know what that is, and the height in paraffin wax can be the height in glass multiplied by cosine of the contact angle between water and paraffin, divided by the cosine of the contact angle between water and glass. So that's five centimeters height with glass, times cosine of 107 degrees over cos zero which is one, and that gives negative 1.46 centimeters. So this paraffin wax tube will actually push down the water in comparison to the water around it. So if you put a paraffin wax tube -- drawing in black here, and have the water level down here like this, it won't have a shape like that, I don't think anyway. So now in silver, a silver tube, we have the height in glass times cosine of the contact angle between water and silver, divided by cosine of the contact angle between water and glass. So we have five centimeters times cos 90 degrees over cos zero and that'll be zero. So there'd be no height raised at all.