what's the energy source for capillarity to lift liquid up?

makc

Quote by DaleSpam

A magnet can lift a piece of metal, doing work on the metal, but in doing so the magnetic domains in the metal become aligned against the magnetic field and the field is reduced, it becomes less able to lift more metal. If you wish to lift more metal then you must first remove the piece of metal from the magnet, this requires work and increases the field where the energy is stored.

but you can't play this card with gravity, can you? whatever falls down on the planet, planet's gravity does not get weaker (even if we ignore additional mass of things that fall). you can keep "spawning" objects at some distance, and it will pull them to the surface, ad infinitum.

DaleSpam

Quote by makc

but you can't play this card with gravity, can you? whatever falls down on the planet, planet's gravity does not get weaker (even if we ignore additional mass of things that fall). you can keep "spawning" objects at some distance, and it will pull them to the surface, ad infinitum.

The energy density of gravity is strictly negative, so the more mass you add the more negative it becomes. That is indeed one of the differences between gravity and magnetism. However, it is not different in terms of energy conservation since in order to restore the field to a more energetic state you must always do work which is exactly equal to the change in energy of the field.

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