Why does water travel up in fabric/paper?

Thread starter Stickybees
Start date Jan 1, 2012
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Travel Water

Jan 1, 2012

Stickybees

Why when water is absorbed by something does it travel? I think it may be due to finding a lower energy from surface tension but I don't have any intuition of it.

Thanks!

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Jan 1, 2012

mathman

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action

see above.

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