German Physical Society:
Water Droplets Grow Faster Than Expected
Adrian Cho
At the German Physical Society meeting, researchers showed that, paradoxically, whereas water droplets in a crowd grow steadily with time, an isolated droplet grows faster as it gets bigger: Its volume increases in proportion to time raised to the 3/2 power. To prove it, they grew drops in isolation or in groups on a small finger of glass in a chamber in which they could control the temperature and humidity and then filmed the droplets condensing or evaporating.