Surface tension effects of surface tension can be seen with ordinary water: Surface tension is visible in other common phenomena, especially when surfactants are used to decrease it: Surface tension, represented by the symbol "γ" (alternatively "σ" or "T"), is measured in force per unit length. Its SI unit is newton per meter but the cgs unit of dyne per centimeter is also used. For example, Surface tension can be defined in terms of force or energy. In terms of force: surface tension of a liquid is the force per unit length. In the illustration on the right, the rectangular frame, composed
Surface layering Stuart Rice at the University of Chicago in 1983 and has been experimentally discovered by Peter Pershan (Harvard) and his group, working in collaboration with Ben Ocko (Brookhaven) and Moshe Deutsch (Bar-Ilan) in 1995 in elemental liquid mercury and liquid gallium using x-ray reflectivity techniques. More recently layering has been shown to arise from electronic properties of metallic liquids, rather than thermodynamic variables such as surface tension, since surfaces of low-surface tension metallic liquids such as liquid potassium are layered, while those of dielectric liquids such as water, are not. Surface layering Surface layering is a quasi-crystalline structure at the