Why do liquids travel against the force of gravity?

Question

Well...this is somewhat hard to explain.
Imagine you were holding a cloth vertically. You then dip the bottom tip of the cloth into water. You will notice that the water travels from the bottom tip of the cloth, upwards.

My question is, how can this be? Wouldn't the force of gravity restrict the motion of the water, and pull it down? What force (or concept) allows this motion? If this is a force, Why does this force overcome gravity?

I know its a weird question...and its not for school or anything. I did about an hour of research, and even asked my physics teacher about this, and he couldn't provide me with a suitable scientific explanation.

Thx

this is only for my own curiosity.
=]

Answer 1

I think that water goes up through a cloth, a string, or a paper towel by capillary action. Each of these materials has tiny spaces that have similarities with tiny glass capillary tubes. Water molecules, being polar, go up these little spaces. You can see this easily if you hold two glass microscope slides stacked together and touch one end to some water. The water goes up between the slides.

Answer 2

Because there is another force at work.

Cloth is made of lots of little threads. The water actually clings to these threads. Which pull the water up the cloth.

It is the same force that makes a drop of water round and water at the edge of a glass slightly higher than the centre.

By the way, this is a beautiful scientific question. You are taking observed phenomena, looking at what you understand and thinking about what you don't know that could explain what you saw.

Answer 3

ecolink and the others are basically correct, but it doesn't entirely have to do with the polarity of the liquid, but also the surface tension. It's the same thing if you take a very small peice of glass tubing, like millimeter diameter, and place it just above a glass of water a small amount of water will travel up the tube. Water has a very high surface tension, and it climbs up things to try and expand it's surface area.

With a liquid climbing up a cloth it is a mixture of this expansion of surface area, and it can be a polarity thing as well. If the cloth is highly polar, it can pull the water molecules up because they are also highly polar.

I don't know if this makes sense or not, but that's the way I think of it.

Answer 4

The idea is similar to plants. Water is absorbed into the root system and travels up the root to nourish the plant I suppose it has to do with the absorption properties of the material in question, and not gravity.